Matthew Spencer Petersen has withdraw his nomination for a federal judicial post. See CBS news report. I wrote about his awful testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee here. Mr. Petersen essentially admitted that he had no background in litigation or criminal law. Being a judge, he would need to know a bit about trials, lawsuits and criminal law. We can assume the Trump administration asked him to withdraw his nomination after his terrible performance before the committee last week.

But, one has to wonder why his name went forward, at all. It is rare enough for the ABA standing committee on federal judiciary nominations to award an “unqualified” rating. That fact alone should have raised a red flag. But, then the administration apparently did nothing to prepare Mr. Petersen for his committee appearance. The administration threw him to the wolves with little or no preparation.