Washington, D.C. — Today, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell arranged for the Senate to move ahead with a vote on two of President Donald Trump’s most unqualified and controversial judicial nominees: Thomas Farr, to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, and Jonathan Kobes, to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. In response, Jake Faleschini, director of the Federal Courts Program at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement:
Thomas Farr is perhaps the least judicial person in North Carolina and any self-respecting senator should reject his confirmation. Farr made a career of restricting the rights of African American voters and will almost certainly undermine the nation’s civil rights laws from the federal bench. He has strong personal ties to white supremacists. He defended North Carolina’s illegal voter identification law that was designed to suppress African American voter turnout. He also represented the late Sen. Jesse Helms during the senator’s notoriously racist campaigns in 1990s. Farr should be disbarred, not promoted to the federal judiciary.
Jonathan Kobes is also unfit for the federal judiciary and his nomination should be rejected. The American Bar Association rated him as “Not Qualified” and he has a record hostile to women and the LGBTQ community. He once sat on the board of a foster care agency that he knew discriminated against same-sex couples, and he voluntarily represented fake women’s health centers in a lawsuit defending a South Dakota anti-abortion law. He cannot be trusted to provide fair and impartial justice.
For more information or to speak with an expert, contact Sam Hananel at [email protected] or 202.478.6327.