In March, after Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh took time off from his Supreme Court duties to swear in Justin Walker to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky in Louisville, the newly minted judge recognized how he had gotten there at the age of 37, with zero trial experience but a pedigree in conservatism.
His mother had supported a rising Republican star named Mitch McConnell when her son was just 8, Judge Walker recalled: “I’ve got to hand it to you, Mom. It has been extremely important to me that Kentucky’s senior senator is Mitch McConnell.”
Then he turned to Justice Kavanaugh as he addressed the justice’s liberal opponents: “What can I say that I haven’t already said on Fox News?” said Judge Walker, who gave 119 interviews to the news media and several speeches paid for by the Federalist Society rebutting Kavanaugh critics. “In Brett Kavanaugh’s America,” he said, “we will not surrender while you wage war on our work, or our cause, or our hope, or our dream.”
He closed with a broadside against the American Bar Association, which had given him a rare “Not Qualified” rating for his absence of courtroom work, categorizing the professional organization among his “opponents.” “Although we are winning we have not won. Although we celebrate today, we cannot take for granted tomorrow — or we will lose our courts and our country to critics who call us terrifying and who describe us as deplorable.”
Barely two months later, Judge Walker will appear Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee as Mr. McConnell’s handpicked nominee to a new seat: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, long seen as the second-most powerful court in the land and a potential springboard to the most powerful, the Supreme Court.
In his quest to remake the American judiciary, Mr. McConnell is not done with his protégé, Judge Walker, the grandson of a millionaire power broker in Kentucky and a soldier in the Senate majority leader’s judicial push. Calling senators back to Washington amid a pandemic, Mr. McConnell plans a swift confirmation for the youngest nominee to the District of Columbia appellate court since 1983 to replace the retiring Judge Thomas B. Griffith.
The appellate court’s chief judge, Sri Srinivasan, opened the door to an inquiry into whether Mr. McConnell had improperly pressured Judge Griffith to retire so he could replace him with a young conservative in case President Trump loses re-election. But in a statement late Tuesday, Judge Griffith cited his wife’s chronic illness as the reason for his departure, saying, “My decision was driven entirely by personal concerns and involved no discussions with the White House or the Senate.”
Republicans promote Judge Walker as a “drain the swamp” Washington outsider, who triumphed over a hardscrabble upbringing in Kentucky to reach the heights of American jurisprudence 11 years out of law school.
“He’s young, brilliant and conservative,” said Mike Davis, who leads the Article III Project, a judicial advocacy group that has pushed President Trump’s appointments to the federal bench.
Democrats see the appointment differently. “I don’t think Mitch cares much about who is appointed to these spots as long as it’s someone he knows and he has confidence will be a conservative,” said Representative John Yarmuth, a Democrat who represents Mr. McConnell’s hometown, Louisville, and who has known Mr. McConnell for decades.
“It’s the ultimate wielding of power,” he added, “and that’s what Mitch lives for.”
Judge Walker’s biography has received something of a makeover during his judicial ascent. Last year, he described his mother, Deborah Walker, as “a single working mom” who “made indescribable sacrifices to provide me, the first in my family to graduate from college, with the opportunities she didn’t have herself.”
But his maternal grandfather, Frank R. Metts, was a millionaire real estate developer and a Kentucky transportation secretary who was one of the state’s most powerful officials in the early 1980s.
His mother had supported a rising Republican star named Mitch McConnell when her son was just 8, Judge Walker recalled: “I’ve got to hand it to you, Mom. It has been extremely important to me that Kentucky’s senior senator is Mitch McConnell.”
Then he turned to Justice Kavanaugh as he addressed the justice’s liberal opponents: “What can I say that I haven’t already said on Fox News?” said Judge Walker, who gave 119 interviews to the news media and several speeches paid for by the Federalist Society rebutting Kavanaugh critics. “In Brett Kavanaugh’s America,” he said, “we will not surrender while you wage war on our work, or our cause, or our hope, or our dream.”
He closed with a broadside against the American Bar Association, which had given him a rare “Not Qualified” rating for his absence of courtroom work, categorizing the professional organization among his “opponents.” “Although we are winning we have not won. Although we celebrate today, we cannot take for granted tomorrow — or we will lose our courts and our country to critics who call us terrifying and who describe us as deplorable.”Barely two months later, Judge Walker will appear Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee as Mr. McConnell’s handpicked nominee to a new seat: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, long seen as the second-most powerful court in the land and a potential springboard to the most powerful, the Supreme Court.
In his quest to remake the American judiciary, Mr. McConnell is not done with his protégé, Judge Walker, the grandson of a millionaire power broker in Kentucky and a soldier in the Senate majority leader’s judicial push. Calling senators back to Washington amid a pandemic, Mr. McConnell plans a swift confirmation for the youngest nominee to the District of Columbia appellate court since 1983 to replace the retiring Judge Thomas B. Griffith.
The appellate court’s chief judge, Sri Srinivasan, opened the door to an inquiry into whether Mr. McConnell had improperly pressured Judge Griffith to retire so he could replace him with a young conservative in case President Trump loses re-election. But in a statement late Tuesday, Judge Griffith cited his wife’s chronic illness as the reason for his departure, saying, “My decision was driven entirely by personal concerns and involved no discussions with the White House or the Senate.”
Republicans promote Judge Walker as a “drain the swamp” Washington outsider, who triumphed over a hardscrabble upbringing in Kentucky to reach the heights of American jurisprudence 11 years out of law school.
“He’s young, brilliant and conservative,” said Mike Davis, who leads the Article III Project, a judicial advocacy group that has pushed President Trump’s appointments to the federal bench.
Democrats see the appointment differently. “I don’t think Mitch cares much about who is appointed to these spots as long as it’s someone he knows and he has confidence will be a conservative,” said Representative John Yarmuth, a Democrat who represents Mr. McConnell’s hometown, Louisville, and who has known Mr. McConnell for decades.
“It’s the ultimate wielding of power,” he added, “and that’s what Mitch lives for.”
Judge Walker’s biography has received something of a makeover during his judicial ascent. Last year, he described his mother, Deborah Walker, as “a single working mom” who “made indescribable sacrifices to provide me, the first in my family to graduate from college, with the opportunities she didn’t have herself.”
But his maternal grandfather, Frank R. Metts, was a millionaire real estate developer and a Kentucky transportation secretary who was one of the state’s most powerful officials in the early 1980s.
by Elizabeth Williamson and Rebecca R. Ruiz, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times
