kk mizelle hon

clerked for clarence, husb pal of stephen miller ATTACK ABA

leo teneo

jones day

Trump allies launch a bid to take control of the D.C. Bar Association

archiescom - March 8, 2025

WASHINGTON — Two of President Donald Trump’s allies have launched bids for leadership roles with the D.C. Bar Association, an under-the-radar effort that would give them more control over the influential legal group.

The push comes amid bar associations’ confrontations with the Trump administration, and some federal attorneys have looked to their state groups for ethical guidance amid Trump’s rapid reshaping of government.

Bradley Bondi — a lawyer who is Attorney General Pam Bondi’s brother — and Alicia Long — a deputy to Ed Martin, Trump’s interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — are running for president and treasurer. The election runs from April to June, according to the organization’s website.

While the general public may not pay much attention to bar associations, lawyers do. The nongovernmental groups decide who gets to be a lawyer — and who gets to stay a lawyer when misconduct allegations are involved. The D.C. Bar, as it is known, has more than 120,000 members, and, by virtue of its location, it is where a significant number of federal attorneys are licensed.

The effort to take control of the D.C. Bar follows warnings Trump administration officials have directed at bar associations, which lawyers inside and outside the government have suggested could play a role in slowing down legally questionable elements of Trump’s agenda.

On one of her first days as attorney general, Pam Bondi warned career lawyers that they could be fired for refusing to carry out orders because of any personal objections. Meanwhile, the D.C. Bar maintains a confidential legal ethics hotline for members to submit concerns.

In a statement to NBC News after this article published, Bondi pledged to protect the D.C. Bar from being politicized and noted that he has been an active member of the organization for 26 years.

“The Bar has a non-partisan mission, which I intend to vigilantly protect against any push to politicize it,” he said.

“My effort to run for DC Bar president began months before the federal elections and has no connection with national politics at all. With my six years of DC Bar leadership — having been elected two times to a Bar leadership position — three years in public service, and over 20 years in private practice and as a law professor, my record of serving the legal community with that integrity is plain to see,” he added.

Bondi also said he wants to focus on “efficiency and practical benefits,” including “free on-demand continuing legal education for all 50 states” and more educational programs and pro-bono opportunities.

“This isn’t about politics; I’m running to help strengthen our profession and support members of the Bar no matter what their beliefs or backgrounds,” he said.

Bondi and Long each face one opponent. If elected, they would join the professional organization’s 23-person Board of Governors. Though the D.C. Bar does not have a direct role in disciplining lawyers for misconduct, its board does recommend members to sit on the D.C. Board of Professional Responsibility, the disciplinary arm of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Disciplinary cases are brought forward by a separate Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which investigates and prosecutes ethical complaints against lawyers.

With Republicans in control of the House and the Senate, bar discipline could be one of the last remaining ways to hold Trump-appointed attorneys accountable. On Thursday, a group of Democratic senators wrote a letter to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel expressing “grave concerns” about some of the highly unusual steps Martin has taken since he became interim U.S. attorney. The letter accused him of “serious violations of professional conduct” and abusing his position. Martin did not respond to requests for comment.

Some Trump attorneys have faced sanctions in Washington for their actions. Rudy Giuliani was disbarred in Washington last year in the wake of his efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss; a committee of the Board on Professional Responsibility found that what it called his “utter disregard for facts denigrates the legal profession.”

Jeffrey Clark — a former Justice Department lawyer whom Trump tried to make attorney general in the days before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack — appeared before the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility last year and invoked the Fifth Amendment. A panel made a preliminary determination that he had committed an ethical violation and recommended in August that he be suspended from practicing law for two years. With Trump back in the White House, Clark is now acting administrator of the White House Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

And a Republican report issued in December by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, of Georgia, alleged possible coordination between House Jan. 6 investigators and the D.C. Bar to target an attorney who represented a former Trump White House aide. (The Office of Disciplinary Counsel dismissed that complaint last year.)

Bondi’s and Long’s bids quickly caused some alarm among attorneys in Washington. An email seen by NBC News and sent to dozens of Washington-area lawyers — and also shared on social media — described the duo as “Trump/Pam Bondi loyalists” who were “making a bid to take over the DC Bar” and encouraged recipients to pay attention and vote.

An attorney at a federal agency said the pro-Trump effort to win leadership positions at the D.C. Bar suggests the administration “may be getting pushback internally” from lawyers who are concerned about potential professional consequences for carrying out Trump’s agenda.

“They know this is a potential weakness,” this person added.

Bondi and Long did not respond to requests for comment. NBC News has reached out to the D.C. Bar for comment.

Bondi’s opponent, Diane A. Seltzer, an attorney with a focus on employment law who already serves on the D.C. Bar’s Board of Governors, said she decided to run because she saw it as the culmination of decades of bar leadership experience at a critical time in history.

“I want to be able to support the members of our bar in this time of governmental chaos,” she said. “Our legal system needs a bar that understands and sees them and can support them in ways that will be helpful and keep everyone’s energy up and keep people from giving up or burning out.”

The D.C. Bar does not control the Office of Disciplinary Counsel, but anyone can submit a complaint there, which is then heard by the Board of Professional Responsibility. The D.C. Bar seeks candidates for the Board of Professional Responsibility, but the D.C. Court of Appeals ultimately chooses the candidates.

There are fears among some Washington lawyers, however, that with Trump-supporting officials in place, the D.C. Bar might choose to ignore Court of Appeals rulings or orders from the Office of Disciplinary Counsel.

“I would never want to be president of a bar that could do that or that would do that,” Seltzer said. “I wouldn’t want to be president of a bar where those lines could be blurred and we would say, ‘I am not going to follow what the Court of Appeals has decided or what the Office of Disciplinary Counsel has ordered.’”

The disciplinary process can be protracted. Jennifer Kerkhoff Muyskens — a former assistant U.S. attorney in Washington who led the aggressive prosecution of anti-Trump protesters arrested en masse during Trump’s first inauguration in 2017 — is only now facing a disciplinary hearing eight years later, accused of hiding exculpatory evidence from defendants.

The Trump administration has had a contentious relationship with bar associations, and Republicans have long accused them of having a left-wing bent — tensions that reached a boiling point in Trump’s first term when the American Bar Association, the national bar organization, rated several of his judicial picks as “not qualified” for the jobs they were nominated for.

Project 2025 took aim at the American Bar Association in its policy road map for a future conservative administration, calling for the president to issue an executive order pursuing antitrust measures against it. In one of his first moves as president, Trump signed an executive order that said bar associations could be targeted for investigations over their diversity programs.

Last month, the American Bar Association lambasted what it described as the Trump administration’s “wide-scale affronts to the rule of law itself.” After billionaire Elon Musk, who is overseeing Trump’s effort to reshape government, called for judges who have ruled against Trump to be impeached, the ABA said in a new statement Tuesday that it would “not stay silent in the face of efforts to remake the legal profession into something that rewards those who agree with the government and punishes those who do not.” It added that such attempts at intimidation “cannot be sanctioned or normalized.”

On Wednesday, Chad Mizelle, the Justice Department’s chief of staff, punched back at the ABA, posting to X that “they disguise their advocacy as work to ‘promote the best quality legal education, competence, ethical conduct and professionalism, and pro bono and public service work in the legal profession,’ but they never mention that they also work hand-in-hand on left-wing causes.”

He also wrote that the bar association’s “dedication to left-wing activism undermines justice” and that under the attorney general’s “leadership, DOJ is carrying out President Trump’s executive orders putting an end to radical DEI programs, and we’re all over the ABA’s illegal and immoral diversity mandates for law school accreditation.”

In 2020, the ABA rated Mizelle’s wife, Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, as “not qualified” to serve as a U.S. district court judge in Florida. She was 33 at the time and the youngest person Trump had tapped for the lifetime appointment. She was confirmed to the seat in November 2020.

---

NBC 3 25

Allan Smith and Ryan J. Reilly

While the general public may not pay much attention to bar associations, lawyers do. The nongovernmental groups decide who gets to be a lawyer — and who gets to stay a lawyer when misconduct allegations are involved. The D.C. Bar, as it is known, has more than 120,000 members, and, by virtue of its location, it is where a significant number of federal attorneys are licensed.

The effort to take control of the D.C. Bar follows warnings Trump administration officials have directed at bar associations, which lawyers inside and outside the government have suggested could play a role in slowing down legally questionable elements of Trump’s agenda.

In a statement to NBC News after this article published, Bondi pledged to protect the D.C. Bar from being politicized and noted that he has been an active member of the organization for 26 years.

"The Bar has a non-partisan mission, which I intend to vigilantly protect against any push to politicize it," he said.

"My effort to run for DC Bar president began months before the federal elections and has no connection with national politics at all. With my six years of DC Bar leadership — having been elected two times to a Bar leadership position — three years in public service, and over 20 years in private practice and as a law professor, my record of serving the legal community with that integrity is plain to see," he added.

Bondi also said he wants to focus on "efficiency and practical benefits," including "free on-demand continuing legal education for all 50 states" and more educational programs and pro-bono opportunities.

"This isn’t about politics; I’m running to help strengthen our profession and support members of the Bar no matter what their beliefs or backgrounds," he said.

Bondi and Long each face one opponent. If elected, they would join the professional organization’s 23-person Board of Governors. Though the D.C. Bar does not have a direct role in disciplining lawyers for misconduct, its board does recommend members to sit on the D.C. Board of Professional Responsibility, the disciplinary arm of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Disciplinary cases are brought forward by a separate Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which investigates and prosecutes ethical complaints against lawyers.

With Republicans in control of the House and the Senate, bar discipline could be one of the last remaining ways to hold Trump-appointed attorneys accountable. On Thursday, a group of Democratic senators wrote a letter to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel expressing “grave concerns” about some of the highly unusual steps Martin has taken since he became interim U.S. attorney. The letter accused him of “serious violations of professional conduct” and abusing his position. Martin did not respond to requests for comment.

Jeffrey Clark — a former Justice Department lawyer whom Trump tried to make attorney general in the days before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack — appeared before the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility last year and invoked the Fifth Amendment. A panel made a preliminary determination that he had committed an ethical violation and recommended in August that he be suspended from practicing law for two years. With Trump back in the White House, Clark is now acting administrator of the White House Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Trump administrationTrump signs order to gut Voice of America, other agencies

Bondi’s and Long’s bids quickly caused some alarm among attorneys in Washington. An email seen by NBC News and sent to dozens of Washington-area lawyers — and also shared on social media — described the duo as “Trump/Pam Bondi loyalists” who were “making a bid to take over the DC Bar” and encouraged recipients to pay attention and vote.

“They know this is a potential weakness,” this person added.

Bondi and Long did not respond to requests for comment. NBC News has reached out to the D.C. Bar for comment.

Bondi’s opponent, Diane A. Seltzer, an attorney with a focus on employment law who already serves on the D.C. Bar’s Board of Governors, said she decided to run because she saw it as the culmination of decades of bar leadership experience at a critical time in history.

IFrame Content

Project 2025 took aim at the American Bar Association in its policy road map for a future conservative administration, calling for the president to issue an executive order pursuing antitrust measures against it. In one of his first moves as president, Trump signed an executive order that said bar associations could be targeted for investigations over their diversity programs.

Last month, the American Bar Association lambasted what it described as the Trump administration’s “wide-scale affronts to the rule of law itself.” After billionaire Elon Musk, who is overseeing Trump’s effort to reshape government, called for judges who have ruled against Trump to be impeached, the ABA said in a new statement Tuesday that it would “not stay silent in the face of efforts to remake the legal profession into something that rewards those who agree with the government and punishes those who do not.” It added that such attempts at intimidation “cannot be sanctioned or normalized.”

On Wednesday, Chad Mizelle, the Justice Department’s chief of staff, punched back at the ABA, posting to X that “they disguise their advocacy as work to ‘promote the best quality legal education, competence, ethical conduct and professionalism, and pro bono and public service work in the legal profession,’ but they never mention that they also work hand-in-hand on left-wing causes.”

He also wrote that the bar association’s “dedication to left-wing activism undermines justice” and that under the attorney general’s “leadership, DOJ is carrying out President Trump’s executive orders putting an end to radical DEI programs, and we’re all over the ABA’s illegal and immoral diversity mandates for law school accreditation.”

In 2020, the ABA rated Mizelle’s wife, Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, as “not qualified” to serve as a U.S. district court judge in Florida. She was 33 at the time and the youngest person Trump had tapped for the lifetime appointment. She was confirmed to the seat in November 2020.

CHAD FEDSOC BS

Chad R. Mizelle was previously Of Counsel with the international law firm Jones Day, where his practice focused on government regulation and national security issues. Previously, Chad served as the Acting General Counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, where he managed more than 2,200 lawyers. As the top lawyer at DHS, Chad directed all legal activities related to the Agency’s broad mission, including facilitating international trade and travel (through Customs and the Coast Guard), responding to the COVID-19 crisis and other natural disasters (through FEMA), and working with the private sector to defend critical infrastructure and supply chains against cyber-attacks (through the Secret Service and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency). Prior to serving as Acting General Counsel, Chad served as the Chief of Staff at DHS. He also served at the White House as Associate Counsel to the President and at the Department of Justice as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General. Chad clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle of the D.C. Circuit. He received his J.D. from Cornell Law School and his B.A. from the University of Florida.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's mask mandate for domestic travelers was struck down on Monday by a federal jurist who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. The decision is the latest in a string of blows to President Joe Biden's efforts to curb transmission of the coronavirus.

The CDC last week extended the rule until May 3rd.

Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida wrote in a 59-page ruling that the CDC exceeded its authority in requiring passengers on airlines and any other "conveyance" of public transportation to wear masks to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

Mizelle – whom the American Bar Associated dinged as "not qualified" after she was installed by Trump at the age of 33 – said that passengers who refused to comply and were "forcibly removed from their airplane seats, denied board at the bus steps, and turned away at the train station doors" had their rights against "detention and quarantine" violated.

"The Mask Mandate is best understood not as sanitation, but as an exercise of the CDC's power to conditionally release [from what?] individuals to travel despite concerns that they may spread a communicable disease (and to detain or partially quarantine those who refuse). But the power to conditionally release and detain is ordinarily limited to individuals entering the United States from a foreign country," she proclaimed.

“Wearing a mask cleans nothing,” Mizelle opined, even as cases are once again rising in pockets throughout the country, such as in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which has re-instituted a mask mandate. The virus has also been spreading in the nation's capital, infecting White House officials and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California).

Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, blasted Mizelle's order in a Monday afternoon tweet.

"This is both a big deal and a truly preposterous (nationwide) injunction. The CDC’s statutory authority is specifically directed at preventing the spread of communicable diseases across state lines," he wrote. "Where else is such spread more likely to occur than transport hubs like airports?"

consovoy mcc argued vaccine mandate

omg

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/mcconnell-judges/

raw

on Wednesday, The Daily Beast examined the "dangerous" record of 33-year-old Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, one of the final judicial nominees to be forced through by Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans — and her complete lack of qualifications for the job, beyond her high-powered conservative connections.

"One of five judicial nominees waved through by the lame duck Senate in a final vote before lawmakers left town for Thanksgiving, Mizelle's confirmation is themost galling," wrote Eleanor Clift. "Mizelle is only eight years out of law school (University of Florida), and the ABA's standard for a lifetime seat is 12 years of legal experience. She has had four distinguished clerkships, including one for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, but her only trial experience is as an intern before she graduated from law school. She will take her seat on the Eleventh Circuit for the Middle District of Florida having never tried a case — civil or criminal — as a lead attorney or co-counsel."

Very few judges are ever confirmed to the federal bench in their early 30s, noted Clift. "Mizelle joins that exclusive club because she is a well-connected Washington lawyer with conservative cred who travels in the right circles. At Jones Day, President Trump's favorite law firm, where she has been an associate since last year, Mizelle's profile page highlighted her successful representation of the Chamber of Commerce in fending off a demand from the AFL-CIO for greater worker protections during the COVID crisis."

"She is married to Chad Mizelle, who faced similar questions about his youth and inexperience last year when his friend and ally at the White House, Stephen Miller, smoothed the way for him to become the acting general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, leading DHS' legal office of 2,500 attorneys just six years after graduating from law school," wrote Clift. "Apart from her skimpy experience, concerns about Kathryn Mizelle's ideology are at the core of Democratic opposition, and they originate with her tenure at the Justice Department in 2017 and 2018 supervising litigation handled by the Civil Rights Division. It was a time when many voting rights and LGBT protections were being rolled back."

Moreover, concluded Clift, since 1896, only one judicial nominee was ever advanced during a lame duck session of a defeated president.

"In 1980, a lame duck Senate confirmed Stephen Breyer to the Court of Appeals," wrote Clift. "Nominated by President Jimmy Carter, who had just lost reelection, Democrat Ted Kennedy and Republican Strom Thurmond saw Breyer's confirmation as a fitting reward for the work he had done as chief counsel of the Judiciary Committee, which they had led. More than a decade later, President Clinton elevated Breyer to the Supreme Court. Kathryn Mizell, I'm tempted to say, is no Stephen Breyer."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Early life and education[

Mizelle was born in 1987 in Lakeland, Florida. After graduating from Lakeland Christian School in 2005, she attended Covenant College, graduating in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude in economics with a minor in philosophy. She then attended the University of Florida's Fredric G. Levin College of Law, where she was the executive notes and comments editor of the Florida Law Review. She graduated in 2012 with a Juris Doctor summa cum laude.^[5][6][7]

Career[

Upon graduating from law school, Mizelle served as a law clerk to judge James S. Moody Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida from 2012 to 2013 and to judge William H. Pryor Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit from 2013 to 2014.

She worked as a trial attorney in the Tax Division of the United States Department of Justice from 2014 to 2017, and was detailed as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia from 2014 to 2015. Mizelle was counsel to the United States Associate Attorney General from 2017 to 2018.

In 2018, she briefly clerked for judge Gregory G. Katsas of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and then clerked for justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court from 2018 to 2019.

Mizelle is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.^[8]She has been a member of the Federalist Society since 2012.^[2][9]

Before becoming a judge, Mizelle was an associate at Jones Day,^[10] where she worked on civil and criminal litigation and appeals.^[5][11]

Federal judicial service[

Mizelle in 2021

On August 12, 2020, President Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate Mizelle to serve as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.^[12] At the age of 33, she was the youngest person chosen by Trump for a lifetime judicial appointment.^[13][14][3] On September 8, 2020, her nomination was sent to the Senate to fill the seat vacated by Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington, who assumed senior status on July 12, 2020.^[15]

On September 9, 2020, a hearing on her nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee.^[16] The American Bar Association (ABA)'s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which rates the qualifications of federal judicial nominees, rated Mizelle "Not Qualified" to serve as a federal trial court judge,^[17] noting that "Since her admission to the bar Ms. Mizelle has not tried a case, civil or criminal, as lead or co-counsel."^[18]

Before her appointment, the nominee had only taken part in two trials — both one-day trials in a state court conducted while she was still in law school.^[10] She had eight years of legal experience at the time of her nomination;^[18] the ABA typically requires 12 years to give a nominee a rating of "Qualified". The ABA said Mizelle "has a very keen intellect, a strong work ethic and an impressive resume... her integrity and demeanor are not in question."^[19] But, the committee wrote, "These attributes... simply do not compensate for the short time she has actually practiced law and her lack of meaningful trial experience."^[18] On October 22, 2020, the Judiciary Committee reported her nomination by a 12–0 vote, with all Democratic senators boycotting the meeting.^[20]

On November 18, 2020, the United States Senate invoked cloture on her nomination by a 49–43 vote.^[21] Mizelle’s nomination was confirmed later that day by a 49–41 vote.^[22] She received her judicial commission on November 20, 2020.^[23]

She joined the first group of judges appointed by a president who had lost reelection at the time of confirmation since Jimmy Carter's appointment of Stephen Breyer to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in November 1980.^[10][24]

Tenure[

On April 18, 2022, Mizelle struck down the federal COVID-19 mask mandate on airplanes and public transportation, ruling that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had no authority to implement such a mandate.^[25] Mizelle also stated that the CDC improperly invoked the good faith exception to the Administrative Procedure Act's notice-and-comment rulemaking process. The US Supreme Court had three times refused to issue injunctions against the CDC's mask mandate.^[26] In her ruling, Mizelle argued that the 1944 statute that gives the federal government authority to combat communicable disease as part of "sanitation" efforts was being misapplied because sanitation solely referred to "measures that clean something" and masks do not clean anything in that regard.^[27]

She also argued that travelers were being restricted from the freedom to travel based on an arbitrary condition, and that longstanding case law surrounding the right to enforce "detention and quarantine" by the government was applicable only to those who were actually sick.^[27] On April 20, the Department of Justice announced it would be appealing the ruling after the CDC deemed the mandate was still necessary.^[28] According to Georges C. Benjamin of the American Public Health Association, Mizelle's ruling had the potential to set a precedent reducing government's ability to respond in public health emergencies.^[29]

Personal life[

Mizelle is married to Chad Mizelle.^[30][31][32] He served as acting general counsel of the United States Department of Homeland Security in the administration of Donald Trump,^[33][34] before joining Jones Day in January 2021. Governor Ron DeSantis then appointed him to the 13th Judicial Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission in the state court in Hillsborough County.^[7]

References

fEINSTEIN CALLS ON GOP TO STOP SEATING TRUMP JUDGES IN LAME DUCK

NOV. 12, 2020

WASHINGTON (CN) — Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, urged Republicans on Thursday to stop processing President Donald Trump’s nominees for the federal bench during the lame-duck period.

“Going back to 1984, the Committee has only twice held a nominations hearing in the lame duck period of a presidential election year — once in 2004, following President George W. Bush’s reelection, and once in 2012, following the reelection of President Obama,” she wrote in a letter to Chairman Lindsey Graham.

“Unlike Presidents Bush and Obama,” Feinstein added, “President Trump has lost his reelection bid.”

Graham, who won reelection in South Carolina, has scheduled a hearing for Nov. 18 for the Senate Judiciary Committee to take up more judicial nominees sent over from the White House.

With Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at the helm, Trump and the GOP-Senate have secured 222 federal judges, including three conservative and highly controversial Supreme Court justices.

But Feinstein said President-elect Joe Biden —- and her fellow California Democrat and soon-to-be Vice President Kamala Harris — appear to be headed to a final victory of 306 electoral votes, with more than 77 million popular votes already locked in.

With Biden and Harris well underway with their transition to the West Wing, Graham should respect the “long and established tradition” of not processing judicial nominations after Election Day, she argued.

“The Committee should accordingly cease to process judicial nominations and allow the Biden-Harris Administration the opportunity to appoint judges after Inauguration Day,” Feinstein wrote.

Her letter is unlikely to change the course of the Republican-majority Senate between now and Jan. 20. The entreaty follows Graham breaking with committee precedent and setting a vote on then-Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court before the conclusion of her confirmation hearing.

Feinstein’s call for Graham to show restraint also came the same day the Senate voted 56-21 to confirm Aileen Mercedes Cannon, Trump’s pick to serve as a district judge in the Southern District of Florida. She currently works on criminal appeals for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the same district.

Senators likewise confirmed James Ray Knepp with a 64-24 on Tuesday to serve as a judge in the Northern District of Ohio.

McConnell on Thursday filed cloture motions — to limit debate on the Senate floor — ahead of final votes to confirm six more Trump judges in the coming days.

Among the nominees the Senate is expected to greenlight is Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a Jones Day attorney rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Association to serve as a judge in the Middle District of Florida.

Lame Duck Judicial Confirmation #6 – Florida

Senate Confirmation Vote on Kathryn Kimball Mizelle to be United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida

Kathryn Kimball Mizelle is a former clerk of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas who graduated from law school eight years ago, well short of the dozen years required by the American Bar Association for judicial nominees, who rated her “unqualified.” Prior to her confirmation she was employed by Jones Day, the law firm favored by President Trump. She is 33 years old, making her the country’s youngest federal court judge.

Vote date: Wednesday, November 18, 2020 Vote Tally: 49-41

Party Breakdown: This broke on party lines. All 49 Republicans present voted YES, and all Democrats and Independents voted NO.

Additional Reading:

“Kathryn Kimball Mizelle – Nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida,” from The Vetting Room
“Senate confirms Trump’s youngest federal judge to serve in Tampa,” from The Tampa Bay Times
“Lakeland native Kathryn Kimball Mizelle headed to lifetime seat on federal court,” from The Lakeland Ledger

=-==

off bs

at Mizelle focuses on appeals and complex civil and criminal litigation. As a former federal prosecutor, she has significant argument experience in federal ...

Missing: federalist ‎opioid

Kathryn Kimball Mizelle - Senate Judiciary Committee

www.judiciary.senate.gov › mizelle-sjq_-public

:{:(style="border-color:#70757a;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-3px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

:{PDF:(style="margin:0px 2px 3px;cursor:auto;border:#ebebeb;;border-radius:2px;padding:0px 4px;display:inline-block;height:14px;text-align:center;letter-spacing:0.75px;vertical-align:middle"):}:

:{:{Jones Day:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. 51 Louisiana Avenue, NW. Washington, D.C. 20001. Issues and Appeals Associate. 2018 – 2019. Supreme Court of the United States. One First ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Mizelle Responses to Questions for the Record - Senate ...

www.judiciary.senate.gov › download › mizelle-respon...

:{:(style="border-color:#70757a;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-3px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

:{PDF:(style="margin:0px 2px 3px;cursor:auto;border:#ebebeb;;border-radius:2px;padding:0px 4px;display:inline-block;height:14px;text-align:center;letter-spacing:0.75px;vertical-align:middle"):}:

:{Sep 16, 2020 — Nomination of :{Kathryn Kimball Mizelle:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: to the United States District Court for the Middle ... It says that the :{Federalist:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Society seeks to “reorder[] priorities ... While at :{Jones Day:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, I have represented companies in both high ... based on the marketing, sale, promotion, and distribution of the :{opioid:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-addiction-.:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

UNITED STATES SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE .JUDICIARY ...

civilrightsdocs.info › documents › Mizelle-Public-SJQ

:{:(style="border-color:#70757a;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-3px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

:{PDF:(style="margin:0px 2px 3px;cursor:auto;border:#ebebeb;;border-radius:2px;padding:0px 4px;display:inline-block;height:14px;text-align:center;letter-spacing:0.75px;vertical-align:middle"):}:

:{:{Federalist:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Society for Law and Public Policy, Member, 2012 - present ... :{Kathryn Kimball Mizelle:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Encourages Students to Exercise First Amendment. Rights, Geneva ... While at :{Jones Day:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, I have appeared in federal clistrict court and am ... sale, promotion, and distribution of the :{opioid:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-addiction-treatment drug, Suboxone. 19 ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Jones Day Associate, Former Thomas Clerk 'Not Qualified' for ...

www.law.com › nationallawjournal › 2020/09/09 › jones-...

Sep 9, 2020 — The ABA found 33-year-old Kathryn Mizelle a Jones Day associate who was ... Kathryn Kimball Mizelle testifies before the Senate Judiciary ...

Missing: federalist ‎opioid

33-Year-Old Trump Judicial Pick Attacked Over Experience ...

www.law360.com › articles › 33-year-old-trump-judicial-...

Aug 21, 2020 — Middle District of Florida nominee Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, who turned 33 ... Liberals say the Federalist Society regular is not qualified to oversee a federal ... After her high court stint, last year she joined Jones Day, which has ...

Missing: opioid ‎| Must include: opioid

33-Year-Old Jones Day Associate Confirmed To Fed. Bench ...

www.law360.com › articles › 33-year-old-jones-day-asso...

7 days ago — Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a former U.S. Department of Justice official, will join ... Both have held leadership roles in the right-leaning Federalist Society. ... Mizelle joined Jones Day last year as an associate after clerking for U.S. ...

Missing: opioid ‎| Must include: opioid