Judicial pick pulls out after struggle with law

Matthew Petersen, a nominee to the federal judiciary, has withdrawn from consideration days after a video clip showed him unable to answer basic questions about legal procedure, the White House confirmed Monday.

Petersen, nominated for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is the third of President Donald Trump’s judicial picks to withdraw in the past week amid criticism about their qualifications.

The video of Petersen that went viral Thursday captured five minutes of pointed questioning by Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., at Petersen’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee the day before.

It was posted on Twitter by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who wrote that it showed Kennedy asking Petersen “basic questions of law & he can’t answer a single one.”

Petersen, a graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, has been a member of the Federal Election Commission since 2008 but has no trial experience.

“I had hoped my nearly two decades of public service might carry more weight than my two worst minutes on television,” Petersen wrote to Trump in his withdrawal letter dated Saturday. “However, I am no stranger to political realities, and I do not wish to be a continued distraction from the important work of your administration and the Senate.”

Trump’s record of getting judicial nominees confirmed by the Senate had stood out as a bright spot for the president. But early last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told the White House to “reconsider” the nominations of two nominees, Jeff Mateer and Brett Talley, both of whom were reported to have endorsed positions or groups that embrace discrimination. A day later, both nominations were pulled.

Democratic senators also had questioned the qualifications of Talley, Trump’s nominee for a U.S. District Court seat in Alabama, and Mateer, who was nominated to serve on the bench in the Eastern District of Texas.