Attorney General Eliminates American Bar Association’s Role in Vetting Judicial Nominees

The association ‘no longer functions as a fair arbiter of nominees’ qualifications,” Pam Bondi said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi in Washington on May 7, 2025. Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

Attorney General Pam Bondi has ended the role of the American Bar Association (ABA) in vetting people nominated by the president to serve as judges.

Bondi said in a May 29 missive to ABA President William R. Bay that the association “no longer functions as a fair arbiter of nominees’ qualifications and its ratings invariably and demonstrably favor nominees put forth by Democratic administrations.”

She said that the association has refused to fix the bias in its rating process and that the Department of Justice will stop directing nominees to provide waivers that let the ABA access non-public information on the nominees, including bar records.

Nominees will also neither respond to ABA surveys nor sit for interviews with the association, Bondi said.

“The American Bar Association has lost its way, and we do not believe it serves as a fair arbiter of judicial nominees,” Bondi wrote on social media platform X.

She said the Department of Justice “will no longer give the ABA the access they’ve taken for granted.”

The ABA did not respond to a request for comment and has not appeared to respond publicly to the development.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told The Epoch Times via email that the development was not surprising.

“Since the George W. Bush administration, the ABA has increasingly failed to give all judicial nominees a fair shake, particularly those nominated by Republican administrations. They have also consistently taken partisan stances on political issues and chosen to act like a progressive advocacy organization,” he said. “The Judiciary Committee will still accept letters from the ABA, the same as we do for all outside organizations, but it doesn’t make sense for this administration to be giving favored access to an organization that’s consistently shown political bias.”

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the panel, criticized the move.

“This decision overturns a practice that has been in place for nearly 70 years under Republican and Democratic Administrations alike in order to provide cover for unqualified and extreme nominees who would crumble under a nonpartisan review by their peers,” Durbin told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

The ABA is an association of lawyers and judges. It says it has more than 400,000 members. An ABA committee began conducting independent evaluations of the qualifications of judicial nominees in 1953.

Some evaluations through 2000, and from 2009 to 2016, were conducted before individuals were formally nominated, if requested by the president. Since 2017, the evaluations have only been conducted after nominees are announced.

The evaluations result in a rating, such as “well qualified.”

A 2001 study found that for nominees without judicial experience, the ABA was more likely to give positive ratings to nominees selected by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, compared to nominees selected by President George H.W. Bush, a Republican.

Controlling for other factors, another study from 2009 concluded that the ABC was more likely to give Democrat nominees a “well qualified” rating. A third paper said that there was no clear evidence that a “well qualified” rating was “predictive of better performance.”

During President Donald Trump’s first term, the ABA committee rated 221 nominees “well qualified,” 95 nominees “qualified,” and 10 nominees “not qualified.” During President Joe Biden’s term, the committee rated 247 nominees “well qualified”, 43 nominees “qualified,” two nominees “qualified/well qualified,” and no nominees “not qualified.”