Fair Courts Project

The United States Senate this evening confirmed Gregory Katsas – the legal architect of many of Donald Trump’s anti-LGBT efforts – to the powerful U.S. Federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. We strongly condemn the Senate GOP leadership and those Senators who confirmed Katsas for this lifetime position on the federal bench, and note that this evening’s vote marks the beginning of a year-end surge by the GOP leadership and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to jam through a series of similarly dangerous nominees to other federal courts.

Lambda Legal and 40 other national, state, and local LGBT organizations sent a letter to the United States Senate urging members to oppose the confirmation of Gregory Katsas to the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, citing his central role in the anti-civil rights efforts of the Donald Trump administration, including “morphing the trans military ban from tweet to policy,” as well as his record outside the administration of “litigation seeking to dismantle legal protections for LGBT people,” all of which together make it impossible for him to be viewed as a fair and impartial judge.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today, the American Bar Association defended its unanimous rating of “Not Qualified” on Leonard Steven Grasz’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

This week, Lambda Legal will be out front in its continued opposition to President Donald Trump’s nominations for lifetime appointments on the federal bench.