Government

Judicial Nominee May Have Lied To Senate About Role In Racist Voter Suppression Effort

...and this will have absolutely no impact on his confirmation.

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The hand is white, because they didn’t receive an intimidating postcard.

In a world where Brett Talley: Ghostbuster and, seemingly, “first KKK” defender sits on the precipice of a lifetime appointment to the federal bench, there’s really nothing about the judicial nomination process that should surprise any more. Alas, while we’ve been staring agog at the Talley nomination, another Trump nominee faces inquiries that he lied to the Judiciary Committee about his involvement in a racist voter suppression campaign.

To be perfectly clear — potentially misleading the Senate about supporting voter suppression was not the top judicial-nominee-is-unfit story of the week. That’s where we are right now.

Thomas Farr of Ogletree Deakins is up for a seat on the Fourth Circuit, specifically the seat that’s been open longer than any seat ever because North Carolina Senator Richard Burr steadfastly refused to allow two qualified black women to hold the seat because… yeah. Farr’s already cleared his Judiciary Committee hearing, despite some question whether the former Jesse Helms campaign attorney knew of a 1990 postcard effort targeting 100,000 black voters, suggesting that they could face criminal prosecution if they tried to vote. At Farr’s hearing, Senator Feinstein asked Farr directly, “Did you provide any counsel, or were you consulted in any way, about the content of or the decision to send these postcards?” Farr said he did not and first learned of such shocking allegations only after the Justice Department wrote the campaign about the allegations.

A former DOJ attorney who investigated the case in the 90s says that’s not true.

INDY Week, a North Carolina journal doing the heavy lifting on this matter spoke to Gerald Herbert about his work on the case.

Hebert told the INDY Wednesday that he learned about the role Farr played planning the postcards when responding to complaints to the Justice Department about the 1990 senatorial campaign of the late North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms.

A meeting planning “ballot security” efforts—including the intimidating postcards—included Farr and took place in mid-October before the November election between Helms, who won, and then-Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt, Hebert says, referring to contemporaneous handwritten notes.

“We talked to Farr, and he confirmed a lot of what we’d heard,” Hebert told the INDY Wednesday. “I don’t think he can really claim that the first he heard of it from a Justice Department letter.”

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Senator Feinstein is now demanding answers in the wake of INDY Week’s report. If Farr was truly involved in the postcards campaign, that alone wouldn’t appreciably impact his chances at this seat. Farr’s involvement in racial gerrymandering and racially inspired voter ID intimidation is public knowledge so everyone with strong feelings on the whole “right of Americans to vote regardless of race” already made up their mind on Farr. But if he actually misled the Senate, could that rub at least a few Republican senators the wrong way — as a matter of institutional pride? Probably not. Still, this is another embarrassment for an administration whose qualified judicial nominees are routinely overshadowed by a growing roster of Clown College of Law rejects.

How does a vetting oversight like this even happen? Zoe Tillman has a new deep dive into the Federalist Society’s influence over Trump’s judicial nominees. That makes some sense because FedSoc doesn’t exactly boast a rigorous vetting process. If you can pronounce “Founding Fathers” and hate abortions you get the seal of approval. Obviously these nominations are very “inside baseball” and no one will face serious political fallout if they put Ivanka on the D.C. Circuit, let alone a relatively anonymous Republican campaign lawyer. But why even invite the trouble? Just find someone else.

Or maybe the FedSoc bench is as shallow as its statutory analysis.

Did Former Helms Lawyer Thomas Farr Lie to the Senate Judiciary Committee? It Sure Looks That Way. [INDY Week]
After the INDY’s Report About Judicial Nominee Thomas Farr Misleading a Senate Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein Wants Answers [INDY Week]

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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