Sen. Rubio picks benefactor Braman’s nephew to be a federal judge in Miami

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s sway over the selection of federal judges is in full swing, as President Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated one of his choices for an opening in South Florida and next plans to nominate another pick with powerful political connections.

David Leibowitz, the nephew of billionaire Norman Braman — Rubio’s most prominent benefactor — is on tap to fill a vacancy on the federal bench in Miami. A former federal prosecutor, Leibowitz works as an attorney for Braman’s cardealership empire in South Florida.

While Trump is expected to appoint Leibowitz soon, the president nominated Aileen Cannon, an assistant U.S. attorney who specializes in appellate law, for the fednomination eral bench in Fort Pierce on Wednesday. She awaits a confirmation hearing this spring or early summer — a final review that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., recently promised for all of Trump’s judicial nominees before the November presidential election.

Cannon declined to comment. Her nomination, pushed by Rubio and fellow Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott, is expected to go smoothly.

Next, Trump plans to nominate Braman’s nephew, Leibowitz, to the federal bench in Miami, according to legal sources familiar with the selection. Braman has been Rubio’s political benefactor for years, donating between $5 million and $10 million to his failed presidential campaign in 2016. Rubio picked Leibowitz for the Miami opening, although Trump has final approval for submitting the to the Senate.

Leibowitz and his uncle, Braman, did not return several messages seeking comments. The offices of Rubio and Scott declined to comment. A spokesperson for Rubio, however, sent the Miami Herald an email highlighting Leibowitz’s credentials to emphasize his qualifications to be a federal judge.

Leibowitz served as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York between 2003 and 2012, after earning a B.A. and J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. Leibowitz has worked as general counsel for Braman Motorcars since 2012 and lives in South Florida.

For the judgeship opening in Miami, Leibowitz beat out a former federal prosecutor in South Florida, Michael Sherwin, who has worked in recent months as an assistant to U.S. Attorney General William Barr and is serving as second-in-command at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia. Sherwin is also a former Naval intelligence officer.

Legal observers said that while Leibowitz might be qualified to sit on the federal bench, Rubio has put his political imprint on a handpicked advisory committee headed by mostly Republicans who review and recommend federal judicial candidates to Florida’s two senators.

Miami attorney Jon Sale, who has sat on that advisory committee and been involved in previous federal judicial-nominating commissions in South Florida, said Leibowitz is “well-qualified” to serve as a federal judge. He declined to comment further.

But other legal observers said Leibowitz’s relationship with his uncle and Braman’s financial support of Rubio’s career cannot be overlooked in the highly political process of choosing candidates for coveted federal judge openings, legal observers said.

“The fact that he has an influential relative should certainly not diminish his obvious qualifications,” said Miami attorney Dennis Kainen, a former president of the Miami-Dade County Bar Association and ex-governor of The Florida Bar. “However, his uncle’s relationship with Rubio certainly may have colored the senator’s decision.”

Kainen, who has served on a state judicial-nominating commission, said he lamented the absence of a more open process for selecting federal judges in Florida. He said that process existed before Trump was elected president in 2016. “Though politics has always infused the process, it should not be the overriding template utilized in nominating our judges,” he said.

For decades, Florida had a federal judicial-nominating commission consisting of lawyers with Democratic and Republican backgrounds who vetted judicial candidates for Florida’s two senators before they recommended finalists to the president’s staff. But that formal process, adopted by Democratic former Sen. Bob Graham, ended when

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson left office in January 2019 after he was defeated by Scott.

Before the advent of Rubio’s advisory committee, the nominating commission in South Florida had reviewed nearly 50 candidates before recommending four finalists who now serve on the federal bench: Roy Altman, Rudolfo Ruiz, Rodney Smith and

Raag Singhal. Those four, along with Cannon and Leibowitz (if nominated), represent a generational sea change on the federal court in South Florida.