President Donald Trump is now pushing for the Senate Republican in charge of the committee overseeing the federal courts to get rid of a longstanding tradition that would allow him to more easily prosecute his political opponents.
That’s according to a Tuesday article in Courthouse News Service, which reported that Trump has now set his sights on Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). As chair of the powerful committee, Grassley is in a position to do away with the custom of “blue slips,” in which senators from states under the jurisdiction of a presidential appointee to a federal judgeship or a U.S. attorney’s office can effectively veto a nomination by refusing to turn in blue slips in agreement with the appointment.
One particular example is Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.) not submitting blue slips in favor of controversial acting U.S. attorney Alina Habba for the District of New Jersey, who the Trump administration has allowed to remain in her post by exploiting a loophole in the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. In a Truth Social post on Tuesday night, Trump raged against the blue slip system, and called on Grassley to end it so he can ram through a slew of far-right prosecutors in Democratic-run states.
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“Democrats like Schumer, Warner, Kaine, Booker, Schiff, and others, SLEAZEBAGS ALL, have an ironclad stoppage of Great Republican Candidates,” Trump wrote in his signature style of oddly placed capital letters. “Put simply, the President of the United States will never be permitted to appoint the person of his choice because of an ancient, and probably Unconstitutional, “CUSTOM,” that if you have, even one person in the opposite Party serving in the U.S. Senate, he/she must give consent, thereby completely stopping the opposite Party’s Nomination.”
“The only way to beat this Hoax is to appoint a Democrat or, a weak and ineffective Republican,” he continued. “Therefore, I would never be able to appoint Great Judges or U.S. Attorneys in California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Virginia, and other places, where there is, coincidentally, the highest level of crime and corruption — The places where fantastic people are most needed! … Chuck, I know you have the Courage to do this, DO IT!”
As Courthouse News Service’s Benjamin S. Weiss wrote, Trump gave no evidence that the blue slip system was “probably Unconstitutional,” and that the Constitution in fact gives the Senate the power of “advice and consent” regarding presidential nominees. Weiss also noted that Trump’s claim that Democrats “openly broke” the blue slip tradition was unfounded.
Democrats have abided by the blue slip system even to their own detriment. In 2023, then-President Joe Biden withdrew the nomination of Scott Colom, whom he had nominated to serve as a U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Mississippi. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) refused to return a blue slip for Colom’s confirmation, and then-Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) refused to abolish the blue slip system to confirm Colom.
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Click here to read Courthouse News Service’s full report.