In a rare public rebuke, the American Bar Association (ABA) has slammed the U.S. Department of Justice for effectively sidelining the legal world’s oldest gatekeeper from vetting judicial nominees—a move the ABA calls “deeply disturbing.”
The protest came in a sharply worded letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, where ABA President William Bay expressed alarm over what he called an unprecedented clampdown. For the first time in 70 years, the Department has shut off the ABA’s access to crucial information about federal bench nominees—information it once used to quietly assess fitness for lifetime judicial posts.
“This shift doesn’t just close doors—it shuts out the light,” Bay warned, arguing that transparency is the first casualty in a nomination process already marred by partisan distrust.
Since 1953, the ABA’s 15-member Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary has quietly screened judicial hopefuls before the Senate ever laid eyes on them. But that long-held tradition—often turbulent—has now been downgraded to relic status. The Department of Justice, in a May 30 shift, stopped requiring nominees to fill out ABA questionnaires or authorize access to their bar and disciplinary histories.
Bondi, defending the rollback in a letter of her own, accused the ABA of favoring Democrats and claimed its evaluations were no longer neutral. That accusation echoed a familiar Republican talking point. George W. Bush shut out the ABA in 2001. Obama brought them back. Trump locked them out again in 2017. Biden opted not to reopen the door.
The current freeze comes as Trump, eyeing a second White House term, begins lining up a fresh bench of conservative appointees. Critics say some picks fall short of the ABA’s preferred baseline—12 years of legal experience. Take Whitney Hermandorfer, 37, a nominee for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, who earned her law degree only a decade ago.
While Trump’s first term saw 10 of his picks rated “Not Qualified” by the ABA, he still pushed through 234 judicial confirmations. Bay counters that despite accusations of bias, the ABA gave passing grades—“Qualified” or better—to at least 96.9% of nominees across both Republican and Democratic administrations over the last 20 years.
But now, with the vetting apparatus unplugged and a new wave of appointments looming, the question isn’t just who gets confirmed—it’s who gets to ask the questions.
