


President Donald Trump on Tuesday pressured Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to scrap the “blue slip” tradition and push through his judicial nominees.
The president fumed over the Democratic Party’s ability to block his “Highly Qualified Judges and U.S. Attorneys” through the blue slip tradition, in a post on Truth Social. He claimed sole credit for getting Grassley reelected, and argued that Democrats had already done away with the tradition.
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“Democrats like Schumer, Warner, Kaine, Booker, Schiff, and others, SLEAZEBAGS ALL, have an ironclad stoppage of Great Republican Candidates. 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,” Trump wrote.
The blue slip process gives power to the minority party or any home-state senator opposed to a president’s picks for prosecutors or circuit court judges. It’s been widely used over the past century by senators from both parties, including sometimes against an administration of a lawmaker’s own party. Despite this, it remains only a tradition. Grassley discontinued it during Trump’s first term for circuit court nominees and did not reinstate it by the Democrats when control of the Senate flipped.
Trump bemoaned that due to the procedure, he would “never” be able to appoint judges or U.S. attorneys in states like California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Virginia, and elsewhere, states with “the highest level of crime and corruption — The places where fantastic people are most needed!”
“Senator Grassley must step up, like Crooked Joe Biden did, when he openly broke, at least two times, the “Blue Slip” SCAM, and like others have done over the years, and let our Great Republican Judges and U.S. Attorneys BE CONFIRMED. He should do this, IMMEDIATELY, and not let the Democrats laugh at him and the Republican Party for being weak and ineffective,” he said.
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“The Democrats have broken this ridiculous custom on us; it’s time that we break it on them. Chuck, I know you have the Courage to do this, DO IT!” Trump declared.
A spokesperson for Grassley, who again chairs the Judiciary panel under the Republican majority, said in April that the committee “has long honored the traditional blue slip process for U.S. Attorney nominees.”