High Justice Dept. nominee Aaron Reitz has social media path suggesting fringe views on vary of points

The nominee for a prime Justice Division job has left a digital path of deleted social media posts that his critics say counsel fringe views on a variety of points, together with an openness to defying courtroom orders and acceptance of organized marriages below sure circumstances.

In a single deleted put up verified by CBS Information, Aaron Reitz, who has been nominated by President Trump to guide the division’s Workplace of Authorized Coverage, commented on a March 2020 ruling by U.S. District Decide Lee Yeakel briefly blocking Texas from shuttering an abortion clinic through the COVID pandemic.  

“Decide Yeakel has made his choice,” Reitz wrote on the social media website X. “Now let him implement it.”

In one other deleted put up he appeared, presumably in jest, to embrace the anti-communist firebrand Joseph McCarthy. Above an image of McCarthy, Reitz wrote, “Convey again the great ‘ol days.”

Reitz declined to remark.

Senators on the Judiciary Committee shall be voting Thursday on whether or not to advance his nomination to grow to be assistant lawyer basic in command of the Workplace of Authorized Coverage, a low-profile however extremely consequential put up inside the Justice Division. 

Reitz is at the moment the chief of workers to Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, and earlier than that was the deputy lawyer basic of Texas the place he oversaw the workplace’s so-called “Biden Docket,” a barrage of greater than 20 lawsuits difficult the earlier administration’s insurance policies, with a significant deal with immigration
and the border. In asserting Reitz’s appointment on Reality Social, Mr. Trump praised him as a real MAGA lawyer, a “warrior for our Structure.”

The Workplace of Authorized Coverage advises the lawyer basic on key issues of coverage and legislation, works intently with Congress to craft laws and is usually on the forefront of choosing and vetting federal judges. Its roughly two dozen attorneys toil away on the division’s fourth ground, not often drawing public consideration and largely staying out of the political crossfire.

Reitz graduated from the College of Texas Legislation Faculty, the place he was editor-in-chief of the legislation assessment. He clerked for a conservative member of the Texas Supreme Courtroom earlier than becoming a member of Bracewell LLP, a white-shoe legislation agency in Houston that after included former New York Metropolis Mayor Rudy Giuliani as a reputation companion. He’s a member of the Federalist Society and in addition did a five-year fight tour in Helmand Province through the Afghan struggle.

On-line, Reitz has for years been an energetic advocate for conservative views and an avid supporter of the MAGA motion. 

“Pleasant reminder that ‘birthright citizenship’ just isn’t a factor,” he tweeted in 2021. He has known as for rolling again reforms to obligatory minimal sentences, posting, “make obligatory minimums nice once more.” And he has inveighed in opposition to the federal proper to an abortion, saying that “roe’s discovering that there is a const proper to abortion is rubbish.” In 2022, the Supreme Courtroom struck down Roe v. Wade, leaving the legality of abortion to the states.

However Reitz’s social media monologue has at occasions veered into extra provocative terrain. A few of these views have attracted the eye of Democrats in Congress through the affirmation course of.

Amongst them are feedback he made suggesting it might be permissible in sure situations to defy a courtroom order.  At his affirmation listening to final month, Reitz was grilled by Democrats about what they noticed as his on-line taunt of Decide Yeakel about his abortion ruling, difficult him to “implement it.”

At his affirmation listening to, Reitz responded to questioning concerning the put up, saying, “There is no such thing as a laborious and quick rule in all situations by which a litigant should adjust to all or some or varied components of a judicial choice. It’s so fact-law- and case-specific that one can not converse typically.”

A few of his most excessive social media posts have eluded scrutiny till now. A assessment of a whole lot of Reitz’s posts previously few years reveal incendiary views on a variety of authorized, social and political points. Forward of his affirmation, not less than 4,000 tweets have been deleted from his X feed, although it’s unclear when the scrubbing occurred.  The tweets cowl a cross-section of hot-button points, from abortion to the homicide of George Floyd to false claims Reitz made concerning the 2020 election.

One among Reitz’s posts steered openness to organized marriages. 

“The extra one realizes that marriage is extra of a public establishment than a personal one, the extra ‘organized’ marriages (rightly understood and paired with some restricted/guiding ideas) makes lots of sense,” he wrote.

And in September 2020, Reitz appeared to need to resurrect the status of McCarthy, the a American demagogue who launched a livid marketing campaign to find and blacklist suspected communists throughout American society and whose identify turned synonymous with political witch hunts.   

White Home spokesman Harrison Fields mentioned in an announcement, “Aaron Reitz is an eminently-qualified nominee, who will be a part of our unimaginable Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi to make sure the Division of Justice delivers for the American folks.” 

Cruz’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee vote is scheduled for Thursday, and Reitz is predicted to be permitted on a party-line vote.