A federal prosecutor nominated by President Trump to sit on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was withdrawn from consideration Thursday after Republican senators expressed concerns over his college writings about race, sexual assault and other issues.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced that the nomination of Ryan Bounds had been pulled by the White House minutes before his confirmation vote was expected.

Judicial nominations are rarely pulled at such a late stage, unless a nominee does not have the support to pass.

Fox News has learned that Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., had determined he would oppose Bounds' nomination and spoke out against it at the GOP Senate luncheon Thursday. Republicans hold a narrow 50-49 edge in the Senate, meaning that one defection would be enough to sink a nomination.


The White House said Bounds had withdrawn his nomination and did not elaborate.

The controversy around Bounds, an assistant U.S. attorney in Oregon, focused on articles he wrote while an undergraduate at Stanford University. In one of them, Bounds criticized what he called "race-focused groups" at the university, which he said "divide up [students] by race for their feel-good ethnic hoedowns."

The "existence of ethnic organizations is no inevitable prerequisite to maintaining a diverse community—white students, after all, seem to be doing all right without an Aryan Student Union," Bounds wrote.

In another article, one discussing campus sexual assault, Bounds wrote, "There is nothing really inherently wrong with the University failing to punish an alleged rapist — regardless of his guilt — in the absence of adequate certainty" and "expelling students is probably not going to contribute a great deal toward a rape victim’s recovery."


The writings were not initially turned over as part of Bounds' confirmation process.

During his confirmation hearing Wednesday, Bounds told senators that his rhetoric was "overheated" and admitted that his views were "not as respectful" as they could have been.

Bounds' nomination was opposed by Oregon's two Democratic senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, who declined to submit the so-called "blue slips" used to indicate approval of a nominee.

Wyden tweeted Thursday that he was "gratified the Senate came to its senses today."


"Ryan Bounds flagrantly misrepresented his background, lying to cover up disturbing, intolerant writings from his past & in my view, that means he’s disqualified from sitting on the federal bench," he wrote.

A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., used the Bounds withdrawal to call for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to turn over papers from his days working in the George W. Bush administration.

"Republicans just sunk the Bounds nomination based on his college writings. After that, how are they going to argue that Judge Kavanaugh’s White House papers aren’t relevant to his nomination to the Supreme Court?" Matt House said in a statement. "A lower court nominee’s college writings are relevant but a Supreme Court nominee’s White House writings aren’t? I don’t think so."

Link

I also heard that when he was 6 he said girls "had cooties" and once referred to a classmate as "poo poo head"

Who hasn't said or written things when they were 18 - 20 that could have been written or worded better?

I suspect my posts on SigForum would complicate my nomination to replace Ginsgurgle.

Those quoted statements are really horrible, aren’t they?

Sen. Scott must have been unhappy about something. He seems to be very level headed.

I must be misreading what Bounds wrote/said because I don't see anything wrong with his statements. Is this manufactured outrage or am I truly missing something?

quote:

Originally posted by Lord Vaalic:
I also heard that when he was 6 he said girls "had cooties" and once referred to a classmate as "poo poo head"

Who hasn't said or written things when they were 18 - 20 that could have been written or worded better?

Exactly my thought. I did a lot of things when I was in college that I would refrain from doing now. (And while he could have said those things a little more delicately, they don't seem egregiously wrong. I have already resigned myself to the fact that I won't be nominated to the 5th Circuit, so who cares what I say now?)

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:

quote:

Originally posted by Lord Vaalic:
I also heard that when he was 6 he said girls "had cooties" and once referred to a classmate as "poo poo head"

Who hasn't said or written things when they were 18 - 20 that could have been written or worded better?

Exactly my thought. I did a lot of things when I was in college that I would refrain from doing now. (And while he could have said those things a little more delicately, they don't seem egregiously wrong. I have already resigned myself to the fact that I won't be nominated to the 5th Circuit, so who cares what I say now?)

With all the coke and whores you aren't appointable, so feel free to say whatever your like.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:

quote:

Originally posted by Lord Vaalic:
I also heard that when he was 6 he said girls "had cooties" and once referred to a classmate as "poo poo head"

Who hasn't said or written things when they were 18 - 20 that could have been written or worded better?

Exactly my thought. I did a lot of things when I was in college that I would refrain from doing now. (And while he could have said those things a little more delicately, they don't seem egregiously wrong. I have already resigned myself to the fact that I won't be nominated to the 5th Circuit, so who cares what I say now?)

With all the coke and whores you aren't appointable, so feel free to say whatever your like.

Whores are OK for a politician, it's the coke that would doom him.

Jim

Let's examine all of B. Hussein's college writings, shall we?

you mean the stuff in thats gonna go in his library




tats just cruel, he can't even provide a transcript or a birth certificate....

U should read ginsburg paper in regards to minors.

major blunder by Tim Scott and Rubio

http://www.powerlineblog.com/a...judicial-nominee.php

Scott’s doubts about Bounds apparently are based on some of his writings as an undergraduate at Stanford. The young Bounds had snarky things* to say about multiculturalism, as conceived by “some of the more strident racial factions of the student body.”

Bounds made these comments 25 years (or so) ago. He has apologized for their tone.

What’s more, Bounds’ writings have been part of the debate over his nomination for months. In May, liberal Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee tried to beat Bounds up with them.

If Scott had concerns about the writings, he should have spoken to Bounds about them or obtained more information well before the Senate was about to vote. But Scott apparently was asleep at the switch. Thus, months of effort to confirm this nominee have gone up in smoke — time that could have been used to confirm other nominees if Scott truly viewed Bounds’ ancient snark as a deal breaker.

This was a truly pathetic performance by the South Carolina Senator and his Florida colleague — one with potential adverse consequences for Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

The Democrats’ main strategy for blocking Kavanaugh is to demand every piece of paper Kavanaugh has ever written as an adult and every paper he laid his hands on as the person in charge of paper flow at the Bush White House. This means millions of pages. The Dems will then demand months to review the documents. By the time they are all produced and reviewed, it will be 2019, and a new Senate will be in place. That’s the plan.

Republicans will counter that there is no need to review Kavanaugh’s old papers. They will say, quite rightly, that the Democrats are just stalling.

But now we have two conservative Republican Senators on record that the writings of a nominee when he was in college — not even in law school — can provide the basis for nixing the nominee.

The point isn’t lost on Sen. Schumer. His spokesman wasted no time declaring:

"A lower-court nominee’s college writings are relevant, but a Supreme Court nominee’s White House writings aren’t? I don’t think so."

Ironically, Senators Collins, Murkowski, Flake, and Corker have all expressed skepticism about the scope of the Democrats’ demands for Kavanaugh’s documents. Corker said that asking for all of Kavanaugh’s paperwork “feels dilatory to me.” Flake said that demanding all 1 million-plus pages seemed excessive and that the request “needs to be reasonable.”

But now Senators Scott and Rubio, both considered to the right of the four Senators mentioned above, have provided fuel for the obstructionist Democrats.

Is little Marco really that idiotic, or is he a John McCain wannabe?

Address
201 South Orange Avenue
Suite 350
Orlando, FL 32801

Phone:
(407) 254-2573
Toll free in Florida: (866) 630-7106

https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact < ----- be polite.

I may have to sleep on it overnight before I can be polite.


Edit: I couldn't stand it. I called and registered an opinion. Maybe a little bit terse, but polite.

this really has a bad smell to it.

I worry there is something going on w Scott & Rubio that's a lot worse than Scott deciding 25 y.o. writings were "racially insensitive".

https://www.breitbart.com/big-...n-qualified-nominee/

instead of letting the White House and the Senate Judiciary Committee know of their misgivings about Bounds months ago, Rubio and Scott raised their concerns about the Oregon federal prosecutor right before Thursday’s Senate vote—which Senate Republicans needed 50 votes in order for Bounds’ nomination to pass.

Bounds’ writings were well known on Capitol Hill since he was nominated in September 2017, but Rubio did not feign ignorance of them. Instead, he decided to speak on the record in a Thursday interview supporting Scott’s decision to take down a judicial nominee who became a priority for the conservative movement.

“Sen. Scott needed more time to talk to people who knew him and that’s not available. Sen. Scott said he couldn’t vote for him today if the vote was now. I support him in that decision,” Rubio told Roll Call.

Billionaire Paul Singer–one of Rubio’s top presidential funding sources–pours tremendous funds into those left-of-center priorities—including amnesty, open borders, the LGBT agenda, gun control, abortion, and racial preferences.

As Democrat-aligned interest groups are putting out action alerts and fundraising letters, energized by Thursday’s defeat of a conservative court pick, Rubio and Scott handed the leftists a win at the expense of conservatives and the Republican Party.