Supreme Court hearings aside, it's rare for a judicial nominee to garner headlines. Matthew Petersen, President Donald Trump's choice for one of the nation's most important courts, is now an exception – and not in a good way.
Video of his disastrous testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday has gone viral because Petersen, who works at the Federal Elections Commission and is up for a lifetime-tenured judgeship, couldn't answer basic questions on procedures most first- or second-year law students are expected to know.
Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, triggered the crash-and-burn testimony Wednesday after Petersen – a candidate for U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which has jurisdiction over the Capitol and the White House – acknowledged he'd never tried a case in court at any level. That fact caught Kennedy's attention, and the senator decided to examine Petersen's knowledge base.
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"Have you ever tried a jury trial?" Kennedy asked.
"I have not," Petersen answered.
Kennedy: "Civil?"
Petersen: "No."
"Criminal?"
"No."
"State or federal court?"
"I have not."
The senator then drilled down even further, forcing Petersen to acknowledge he had taken only a handful of depositions in his entire career and didn't know or understand fundamentally important aspects of courtroom procedure. That included a "motion in limine" (a frequently used request to ask that testimony be excluded from a trial) or the "Daubert standard" (a rule governing expert testimony).