A Democratic senator is under fire by his Republican colleagues for attacking a federal appeals court judge.
Sheldon Whitehouse, a senator and former attorney general for Rhode Island, criticized Judge Neomi Rao after a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit gave the judge overseeing the case against retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn a 10-day period to explain his reasoning for not immediately agreeing with the Justice Department to dismiss the charges facing the former Trump national security adviser.
“Where you see Neomi Rao, you can expect a lot of Trumpy dirt to follow. She’s a cartoon of a fake judge. Watch this space,” Whitehouse tweeted late Thursday.
At least two GOP senators admonished Whitehouse for the remark.
“Not cool, Sheldon. Judge Rao is a gifted, hard-working legal scholar and jurist. I know you disagree with her here — and I strongly disagree with you on that point — but is it ever appropriate to call a sitting jurist ‘a cartoon of a fake judge’? I can’t think of a good reason. Ever,” tweeted Utah Sen. Mike Lee.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who like Lee has a legal background, said: “Shameful. Senate Dems, tired of threatening Supreme Court Justices, turn to the court of appeals for their partisan campaign of judicial intimidation.”
Rao, the former White House regulator czar, joined the circuit court after being nominated by President Trump in 2019, replacing Justice Brett Kavanaugh after he joined the Supreme Court. All Republicans voted in her favor while all Democrats voted against the nomination.
She was the lone dissenter on a three-judge panel earlier when it ruled in favor of the House Democrats in their legal fight to gain access to grand jury material contained within special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
