The New York Times. April 04, 2020

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALSATURDAY, APRIL 4, 2020 0 N + A21

WASHINGTON — President

Trump on Friday nominated

Judge Justin Walker, a protégé of

Senator Mitch McConnell, to a va-

cancy on the influential United

States Court of Appeals for the

District of Columbia Circuit,

touching off what is likely to be a

contentious confirmation fight in

the Senate.

Judge Walker, 37, a native of

Louisville, has served for less

than six months as a United States

District Court judge in Kentucky,

having been confirmed for the

post last year despite receiving an

“unqualified” rating from the

American Bar Association be-

cause of his lack of experience.

But he is a personal favorite of

Mr. McConnell, a Kentucky Re-

publican and the majority leader

who has built a confirmation ma-

chine for conservative jurists

named by Mr. Trump, and who

ushered Judge Walker into an

Oval Office meeting this year and

later lobbied the president to ele-

vate him.

Mr. McConnell, who has known

Judge Walker since he was in high

school, called him “an outstanding

legal scholar and a leading light in

a new generation of federal

judges.” In a statement, he said, “I

am proud that President Trump’s

search took him outside the Belt-

way and into the Bluegrass.”

As the House worked on a sec-

ond round of coronavirus re-

sponse legislation in mid-March,

Mr. McConnell recessed the Sen-

ate for the weekend and flew back

to Louisville for Judge Walker’s

investiture, drawing criticism

from Democrats who said he was

ignoring the pandemic. He was ac-

companied by Justice Brett M.

Kavanaugh, who formally swore

in Judge Walker. The new judge

had been a clerk for Justice Kava-

naugh on the appeals court and

for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy

on the Supreme Court. Video of

the event showed Judge Walker

bumping fists with both Justice

Kavanaugh and Mr. McConnell af-

ter he took the oath.

The District of Columbia ap-

peals court is considered a step-

pingstone to the Supreme Court

and is also viewed as a highly in-

fluential arbiter of many of Wash-

ington’s disputes over federal pol-

icy and separation of powers.

Democrats considered placing

judges on the court to be so crucial

during the Obama administration

that they changed Senate rules in

2013 to eliminate the 60-vote

threshold on confirmations to

overcome Republican filibusters

against nominees to the court.

That change means Democrats

would need Republicans to op-

pose Judge Walker if they hoped

to derail his nomination. All Re-

publicans present voted in favor

of his confirmation last year.

Still, advocates on both sides

anticipate a battle over his selec-

tion given the importance of the

court, Judge Walker’s limited ex-

perience, his conservative record

and the fact that he could easily

serve for at least three decades as

the youngest nominee to the court

since 1983. He is the second-

youngest person nominated by

Mr. Trump to an appeals court.

“Barring a Supreme Court va-

cancy, this will be the biggest judi-

cial fight this year,” said Mike Da-

vis, a conservative judicial activ-

ist who founded the Article III

Project and is a former nomina-

tions counsel for the Senate Judi-

ciary Committee.

During Justice Kavanaugh’s

own confirmation battle, Judge

Walker, then a law professor at the

University of Louisville Brandeis

School of Law, was an ardent de-

fender of his former boss, appear-

ing regularly on television and in

news articles to strongly push

back against attacks on Judge

Kavanaugh.

“Judge Walker was an unrelent-

ing defender of Justice Kava-

naugh during the left’s unprece-

dented smear campaign,” Carrie

Severino, the president of the con-

servative Judicial Crisis Network,

said on Twitter after his nomina-

tion. “I expect Walker to bring

similar courage with him to the

DC Circuit as he defends the rule

of law.”

Judge Walker is a graduate of

Duke University and Harvard

Law School and had worked as an

appellate lawyer in the Washing-

ton office of Gibson, Dunn &

Crutcher before returning to Lou-

isville to practice law and teach.

He is a member of the Federalist

Society, the conservative group

that has been central to the ex-

tremely successful push by the

Trump administration, in concert

with Mr. McConnell, to place

scores of conservatives on the fed-

eral courts.

In his writings, Judge Walker

has exhibited a strongly conser-

vative view. In one article, he la-

beled the Supreme Court decision

upholding the Affordable Care Act

as “catastrophic.” Defending Jus-

tice Kavanaugh, Judge Walker

hailed a conservative judicial rev-

olution that he said would bring

“an end to affirmative action, an

end to successful litigation about

religious displays and prayers, an

end to bans on semiautomatic ri-

fles and an end to almost all judi-

cial restrictions on abortion.”

In opposing the confirmation

last year, Senator Chuck Schumer,

Democrat of New York and the mi-

nority leader, pointed to Judge

Walker’s lack of experience and

said the only reason for his nomi-

nation seemed to be “his member-

ship in the Federalist Society and

his far-right wing views on health

care, civil rights, and executive

power.”

Judge Walker would succeed

Judge Thomas B. Griffith, who

was nominated in 2004 by Presi-

dent George W. Bush after Senate

Democrats filibustered the nomi-

nation of Miguel Estrada and in-

tensified the fight over judicial

confirmations that is still under-

way. Judge Griffith announced

last month that he would step

down in the fall.

Judge Walker’s confirmation

would not immediately change

the balance on the court, which

now consists of seven judges

nominated by Democratic presi-

dents and four by Republicans. He

would be the third judge Mr.

Trump has placed on the court.

Mr. McConnell has emphasized

that he intends for the Senate to

continue confirming judges

through the end of the year, adopt-

ing the motto of “leave no vacancy

behind.” With openings diminish-

ing, Mr. McConnell and other Sen-

ate Republicans have been reach-

ing out to Republican-nominated

judges eligible for retirement to

sound them out about their plans.

That approach has drawn the

scrutiny of progressive activists

who have accused the Republi-

cans of pressuring judges to quit.

“The nomination of a Mitch Mc-

Connell crony, who has been rated

unqualified by his peers, to the

second highest court in the coun-

try is beyond suspicious,” said

Christopher Kang, the chief coun-

sel for the progressive group De-

mand Justice, who called for an in-

vestigation into the vacancy.

The Senate is currently in re-

cess and not scheduled to return

to Washington until late April at

the earliest. A hearing on Judge

Walker’s nomination is likely to be

at least two months away, but the

process of assembling the re-

quired paperwork and back-

ground checks could go unusually

quickly since he was confirmed to

the lower court last year.

President Picks McConnell Protégé for Seat on Appeals Bench

By CARL HULSE

Senator Mitch McConnell, left, with Judge Justin Walker, who has served on a Kentucky district court for less than six months.

ANNA MONEYMAKER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

A judge with an

‘unqualified’ rating

from the American

Bar Association.

FRONT PAGE

An article on Friday about Presi-

dent Trump’s support for a possi-

ble oil deal between Saudi Arabia

and Russia misstated the amount

of the recent stimulus package. It

was $2.2 trillion, not $2.2 billion.

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK

An article on Friday about cruise

ships docking in Florida misiden-

tified the company that will pay

for the passengers to fly home on

charter flights. The cruise line

will pay for the flights, not the

airline.

BUSINESS

An article on March 28 about

Denmark’s response to the eco-

nomic decline triggered by the

coronavirus pandemic misspelled

the surname of a senior fellow at

the Peterson Institute for Interna-

tional Economics. He is Jacob F.

Kirkegaard, not Kierkegaard.

OBITUARIES

An obituary on Friday about the

jazz pianist and educator Ellis

Marsalis misstated how many

grandchildren survive him. There

are 15, not 13.

An obituary on Thursday about

the author and illustrator Tomie

dePaola misstated part of the

name of a reviewer who wrote

about his book “Strega Nona.” She

is Norma Malina Feld, not Norma

Mauna Feld.

Errors are corrected during the press

run whenever possible, so some errors

noted here may not have appeared in

all editions.

Corrections

Contact the Newsroom

[email protected] or call

1-844-NYT-NEWS (1-844-698-6397).

Editorials

[email protected]

Newspaper Delivery

[email protected] or call

1-800-NYTIMES (1-800-698-4637).

WASHINGTON — A secretive
court that oversees national secu-
rity surveillance ordered the F.B.I.
on Friday to conduct a searching
review of 29 wiretap applications
in terrorism and espionage inves-
tigations, after an inspector gen-
eral uncovered pervasive prob-
lems with how the bureau pre-
pared them.
In a rare public order to the
F.B.I., James E. Boasberg, the
chief judge of the Foreign Intelli-
gence Surveillance Court, ordered
the bureau to immediately tell the
court the names of the 29 wiretap-
ping targets, and to scour the ap-
plications and underlying case
files for any inaccuracies or ma-
terial omissions.
The F.B.I. is to submit by June
15 a sworn declaration about the
results of that analysis, Judge
Boasberg wrote. If the F.B.I. finds
misstatements or omissions, it
must also assess whether they un-
dermined the legal basis for plac-
ing those targets under surveil-
lance.
The F.B.I. said in a statement
that the 29 flawed applications
predated changes it made after a
separate damning inspector gen-
eral report last year uncovered
numerous errors and omissions in
applications under the Foreign In-
telligence Surveillance Act, or
FISA, to monitor the former
Trump adviser Carter Page as
part of the Russia investigation.
The bureau emphasized that
maintaining the trust and confi-
dence of the court is “paramount,”
adding that: “In line with our duty

of candor to the court and our re-
sponsibilities to the American
people, we will continue to work
closely with the FISC and the De-
partment of Justice to ensure that
our FISA authorities are exer-
cised responsibly.”
In the report this week, the Jus-
tice Department inspector gen-
eral, Michael E. Horowitz, sought
to examine the so-called Woods
files, in which the F.B.I. is required
to compile supporting evidence
for each statement of fact in the
application that goes to a judge,
for each of the 29 applications.
Mr. Horowitz’s team said that it
“identified apparent errors or in-
adequately supported facts in all
of the 25 applications we re-
viewed” and that the F.B.I. could
not even locate the supporting
files for the other four. The inspec-
tor general wrote that he lacked
confidence that the procedures,
intended to ensure that surveil-
lance applications were “scrupu-
lously accurate,” were working.
“It would be an understatement
to note that such lack of confi-
dence appears well founded,”
Judge Boasberg wrote. “None of
the 29 cases reviewed had a
Woods file that did what it is sup-
posed to do: Support each fact
proffered to the court.”
The inspector general report re-
ferred to some factual errors in
the applications but did not pro-
vide a comprehensive accounting
of them. It also did not compare
the applications to voluminous
raw case files in search of omis-
sions of any mitigating evidence
that could cast doubt on the F.B.I.’s
assertion that a target is probably
a foreign agent.
The inspector general audit was
a follow-up to the report scrutiniz-
ing the F.B.I.’s application for
court permission to eavesdrop on
Mr. Page.
Although the Page wiretap was
only a small part of the Russia in-
vestigation, President Trump and
his allies have sought to portray
the serious problems with the
Page wiretap applications as evi-
dence to support their theory that
there was a politically biased con-
spiracy against the Trump cam-
paign at the F.B.I. that amounted
to an attempted coup.
But Mr. Horowitz’s follow-up
findings of serious problems with
how the F.B.I. put together every
unrelated FISA application his
team scrutinized suggests that
the bureau had been routinely and
systematically negligent when
preparing FISA applications, as
opposed to singling out Mr. Page
for special mistreatment.
After the report about the prob-
lems with the Page applications,
the F.B.I. director, Christopher
Wray, ordered more than 40 cor-
rective actions, like greater train-
ing and new checklists agents
must follow when putting togeth-
er applications. Last month,
Judge Boasberg accepted those
changes and added a few addi-
tional rules.

Secret Court

Orders F.B.I.

To Reassess

Its Wiretaps

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

A lack of confidence

after an inspector

general uncovers

myriad irregularities.

WASHINGTON — President

Trump is firing the intelligence

community inspector general

whose insistence on telling law-

makers about a whistle-blower

complaint about his dealings with

Ukraine triggered impeachment

proceedings last fall, the presi-

dent told lawmakers in a letter

late on Friday.

Mr. Trump is ousting the inspec-

tor general, Michael K. Atkinson,

because he lost confidence in him,

the president wrote in a letter to

leaders of the two congressional

intelligence committees. He gave

no further explanation, but a late-

night dismissal coming as the

world’s attention is gripped by the

coronavirus pandemic raised the

specter of reprisal.

“As is the case with regard to

other positions where I, as presi-

dent, have the power of appoint-

ment, by and with the advice and

consent of the Senate, it is vital

that I have the fullest confidence

in the appointees serving as in-

spectors general,” Mr. Trump

wrote. “That is no longer the case

with regard to this inspector gen-

eral.”

Mr. Trump has been talking to

aides about his desire to oust Mr.

Atkinson since last fall, tarring the

inspector general as disloyal be-

cause he sought to share informa-

tion with Congress about the pres-

ident’s efforts to pressure Ukraine

into delivering him personal polit-

ical benefits.

In February, after the Republi-

can-controlled Senate acquitted

Mr. Trump of charges that he

abused his power and obstructed

Congress, the president ousted

other administration officials who

cooperated in the impeachment

inquiry by providing testimony,

including Gordon D. Sondland, the

ambassador to the European Un-

ion, and Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vin-

dman, a National Security Council

aide.

The White House marched

Colonel Vindman out with securi-

ty guards, along with his brother

Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, an

Army officer who also worked on

the National Security Council staff

but had played no role in the im-

peachment inquiry.

Under the law that created the

position of the inspector general

for the intelligence community,

the president can only remove

that person a month after noti-

fying the intelligence communi-

ties of his intentions and rationale.

“The inspector general may be

removed from office only by the

president,” the law states. “The

president shall communicate in

writing to the congressional intel-

ligence committees the reasons

for the removal not later than 30

days prior to the effective date of

such removal.”

But rather than being permitted

to serve for another month, the

White House has told Mr. Atkin-

son that he is being placed on im-

mediate administrative leave, ac-

cording to a person familiar with

the matter.

On Aug. 12, Mr. Atkinson re-

ceived a whistle-blower complaint

from an intelligence community

official alleging that Mr. Trump

was abusing his powers over for-

eign policy to pressure Ukraine to

announce investigations that

could deliver him personal politi-

cal benefits, including by with-

holding a White House meeting

and military aid that Congress

had appropriated to Kyiv.

Under a federal whistle-blower

law, if the intelligence community

inspector general determines that

such a complaint presents an “ur-

gent concern,” the Office of the Di-

rector of National Intelligence

“shall” disclose it to Congress. In

an Aug. 26 letter to the then-acting

director, Joseph Maguire, Mr. At-

kinson declared that the com-

plaint “appears credible” and met

that standard.

The Trump administration nev-

ertheless refused to send the in-

formation to lawmakers. But it lat-

er reversed course under political

pressure. The initial attempt to

cover up what Mr. Atkinson was

trying to tell lawmakers drasti-

cally heightened attention toward

Mr. Trump’s behavior toward

Ukraine, touching off the im-

peachment proceedings.

Mr. Trump told lawmakers in

his letter on Friday that he will lat-

er submit a nominee to replace

Mr. Atkinson who “has my full

confidence and who meets the ap-

propriate qualifications.”

Andrew P. Bakaj, a lawyer who

represented the whistle-blower,

quickly labeled the dismissal as

“Retaliation” on Twitter.

In a message, Mr. Bakaj wrote,

“He was an honorable inspector

general who executed his duties

with honor and integrity, and in

doing so maintained his independ-

ence and neutrality.”

Trump to Fire Intelligence Watchdog Key to Ukraine Complaint

This article is by Maggie Ha-

berman, Nicholas Fandosand Char-

lie Savage.

A late-night dismissal

during the chaos of a

pandemic raises the

specter of reprisal.

AVE MARIA CHAPEL

Catholic Traditionalist

Center

210 MAPLE AVE (off Post Ave)

WESTBURY, L.I., N.Y. 11590

TEL: (516) 333-6470

TRADITIONAL

LATIN MASS

AS WAS OFFERED BY THE LATE

FATHER GOMMAR A. DE PAUW

SUNDAY MASS @ 9 a.m.

FIRST SATURDAYS & HOLY DAYS:

@9:30 a.m.

DAILY: RADIO MASS

VIDEO INTERNET MASS

http://www.latinmass-ctm.org

Facebook: Ave Maria-Chapel

nytimes.com/playnow

Download the

New York Times

Crossword app.

jixiansheng