WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats glossed past an erroneous allegation that a Texas judicial nominee had called immigrants “maggots” at a…
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats glossed past an erroneous allegation that a Texas judicial nominee had called immigrants “maggots” at a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, even as they probed for signs of political bias by him and another Trump pick who serves as Gov. Greg Abbott’s general counsel.
Democrats’ trained most of their attention on Andrew Oldham, Abbott’s lawyer and a nominee for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which handles cases from Texas and two other states. But they also pushed hard on Michael Truncale, a Beaumont lawyer whose 2012 comments were scrutinized last week after Slate briefly claimed that he’d called immigrants in the country illegally “maggots.”
The Justice Department maintained that Truncale, a congressional candidate at the time, was referring to entitlement programs as “magnets” that lure migrants to the United States. A video at another campaign event show Truncale making the same point but enunciating the term “magnets” more clearly.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who chaired Wednesday’s hearing, wasted no time in bringing up the controversy.
“I was disappointed to see that he was subjected to our brave new world of fake news,” he said at the outset of the hearing.
In a brief interview beforehand, Truncale, the grandson of Italian immigrants, said he would never use the offensive term.
«It just didn’t happen,» he said.
The hearing featured five nominees for lifetime posts, including three Texans: Oldham, Truncale, and Alan Albright. Cornyn and Sen. Ted Cruz recommended all three to President Donald Trump.
Democrats focused on other statements Truncale made while running for Congress, about abortion and voter fraud. Truncale lost the GOP primary to replace retiring Rep. Ron Paul. Rep. Randy Weber, R-Friendswood, went on to win the 14th Congressional District seat.
Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono asked about 2014 remarks he made that “voter fraud makes a mockery of our elections.” Truncale said he couldn’t remember the context in which he’d said that.
“That, unfortunately, is really a political matter,” he said, adding that judges should refrain from sharing their political beliefs. He conceded that he does not have evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Truncale, an attorney at Orgain Bell & Tucker in Beaumont, would replace Judge Ron Clark, who took senior status in February, a form of working retirement for judges. The American Bar Association issued a “well-qualified” rating for him on Saturday, the highest rating a nominee can receive.
Progressive civil rights and judicial advocates took to Twitter to share their displeasure with Truncale and Oldham. The Alliance for Justice tweeted examples of cases Oldham worked on for the state of Texas as evidence of his partisanship.
After the hearing, the group shared videos of Oldham where he “refused to answer” questions from senators like a question from Sen. Cory Booker about voter discrimination.
Democrats raised concerns about Oldham’s time in the Texas Attorney General’s office as deputy solicitor general and later in Gov. Greg Abbott’s office.
“In no set of circumstances would those advocating positions…affect my ability to be a jurist,” Oldham told the committee. “I would leave those advocating positions behind.”
Activists denounced Oldham’s nomination in a letter Monday. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of 200 groups, pointed to Oldham’s history of “significant damage to civil and human rights” while working for the state of Texas.
The group listed a number of cases that Oldham worked on as deputy solicitor general as proof of his partisan bias, including his defense of the state’s strict voter ID law and his work challenging the Obama-era program for young immigrants and environmental regulations.
But Oldham has the support of both senators and of Abbott, who promoted him from deputy general counsel to general counsel in January. He’s also received a “well qualified” rating from the American Bar Association.
When Trump nominated him in February, Abbott called him “a strict construction constitutionalist” and “even better than [Supreme Court Justice Neil] Gorsuch.”
Cornyn sought to inoculate Oldham against criticism stemming from his advocacy, saying that “the last thing we want are advocates on the bench.”
“Yes, those are fundamentally very, very different jobs,” Oldham responded to a question from Cornyn about the difference between advocating for a client and becoming a judge.
The Judiciary Committee also heard from the less-controversial Alan Albright, an Austin lawyer nominated to the Western District. Albright would fill a seat in Waco that opened when Walter Smith Jr. retired in 2016 after an investigation into allegations of sexual assault.
Cornyn said he expects the committee to approve the three Texans and send them to the full Senate for confirmation.
“I don’t think they’re particularly controversial,” he said after the hearing.
