President Trump plans to nominate Judge Justin Walker, 37, for the federal appeals court in D.C., making him the youngest nominee since the 1980s to the nation’s premier federal appellate court. Judge Walker’s nomination comes under one year after his controversial confirmation to a lower court, which attracted criticism from opponents who viewed him as too young and lacking experience. The American Bar Association ranked Judge Walker as “not qualified” last year because of his fewer than 12 years practicing law. Prior to the Senate’s 50-41 vote to confirm him in October 2019, Judge Walker was a law professor at the University of Louisville in Kentucky and a litigator in private practice. He previously clerked for retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh on the federal appeals court in D.C. that Judge Walker now seeks to join. During Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation battle for the Supreme Court, Judge Walker was an ardent defender of Justice Kavanaugh in media appearances on television and in print. Now, he could soon face similar scrutiny to some of Mr. Trump’s other judicial nominations for reasons beyond his relatively young age. Judge Walker is a devout Catholic, an attribute that has come under fire from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Democratic members. In 2017, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee’s top-ranking Democrat, chastised Judge Amy Coney Barrett, then a judicial nominee for a Midwestern federal appeals court, for her Catholic faith and said, “The dogma lives loudly within you.” From a young age, Judge Walker was mentored by a cousin that was a Benedictine monk, and he could face the same treatment as Judge Barrett, according to a source with knowledge of the judicial selection process. Judge Walker’s Kentucky roots may also rub the Washington legal establishment the wrong way. While he has clerked at the Supreme Court and federal appeals court in D.C. and is a graduate of Harvard Law School, his Kentucky pedigree is far from the norm for judges on the federal appeals court in D.C.

And, that’s probably a very good thing!  Judge Walker has all of the necessary resume blocks checked.  He got his bachelors from Duke suma cum laude, and his law degree from Harvard.  Then he clerked for the Supreme Court.  And, he’s a sitting federal jduge.  That’s more than Justice Elena Kagan had, and she’s sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court without any prior judicial experience whatsoever!!  What the self-righteous, hypocritical Democrats in the Senate will have issues with are the fact that he’s a Catholic (which would, again, show Sen. Dianne Feinstein D-CA, and the rest of them, to be religious bigots), and that he’s a white, heterosexual, married man from the south.  Can’t have that in this pc-gone-crazy era.  And, that’s also why the extremely liberal ABA gave him a “not qualified” rating last year; not because of his “fewer than 12 years practicing law.”  Gimme a flippin’ break.  It was probably because he’s a member of the Federalist Society, which is a great organization, and one we think is a positive for any judge!  From what we can glean, Judge Walker, like his predecessor Judge Brent Kavanaugh, is extremely well-qualified for this new position, and we hope the Senate confirms this excellent Trump nomination without delay.