President Biden nominated Nancy Maldonado to the Seventh Circuit on February 27. He had previously nominated her to a district court judgeship for the Northern District of Illinois, to which she was confirmed in July 2022. The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold Maldonado’s hearing tomorrow. One issue likely to come up is her ties to and repeated contact with left-wing dark-money leaders over the course of the nominations process.
In written responses to committee members’ questions for the record following her hearing to be a district judge, Maldonado disclosed that she had spoken about her nomination on several occasions with known dark-money operatives: Robert Raben of the Raben Group, Chris Kang of Demand Justice, and Nan Aron of the Alliance for Justice. The nominee admitted to having repeated contact with Raben and Raben Group staff regarding an endorsement from the Hispanic National Bar Association, to speaking with Kang on several occasions about the judicial nominations process, and to being in contact with Aron.
Arguably no dark-money advocate against conservative judicial nominees has played a more conspicuous role over the years than Aron, who was involved in judicial nominations for over four decades and helped lead efforts to defeat Supreme Court nominees from Robert Bork to Amy Coney Barrett. She testified before the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court in 2021 in favor of packing the Court. And Demand Justice, which started as a project of the Arabella Advisors’–connected Sixteen Thirty Fund, has notoriously worked to steer the Biden administration’s nominations operation, going so far as to lead the campaign to force Justice Stephen Breyer to retire from the Supreme Court.
Robert Raben is less visible but appears to have a lot of influence in the Biden White House, especially as a go-to contact for Hispanic nominees. If confirmed, Maldonado would be the first Hispanic to serve on the Seventh Circuit.
After many years in government that included serving as counsel to Rep. Barney Frank and working in the Clinton Justice Department, Raben started the Raben Group, a lobbying firm that advertises itself as “[d]elivering uncommon expertise and outside-of-the-box solutions.” Judicial nominations have been a priority for the organization since at least the Obama administration. The Raben Group’s list of clients includes a number of dark-money organizations, such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Planned Parenthood, as well as the Arabella-administered New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, and Hopewell Fund.
Raben’s website lists “SCOTUS & The Judiciary” as an area of expertise and advertises that “Raben has . . . had the privilege of supporting hundreds of diverse nominees in navigating the arduous Senate confirmation process—including district court nominees and candidates for the highest court in the land.” Then Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson enlisted Raben to help with the deluge of press scrutiny she received when she became one of the three leading contenders to fill Justice Breyer’s seat. Raben founded the Committee for a Fair Judiciary in 2011 to advance his judicial nominations agenda and later helped Brian Fallon set up Demand Justice.
Raben and the Raben Group have helped many Democratic judicial nominees who seem to be undisturbed by how beholden the Raben operation is to dark-money interests. These behind-the-scenes power plays should not be permitted to remain in the shadows.
If asked, Maldonado should explain her discussions with leftist ideologue groups, starting with Raben and the others she admitted to consulting during her previous nomination. These contacts show that Maldonado’s nomination is yet another instance of payback to the dark-money groups that spent over a billion dollars to help elect President Biden, and the people deserve to see how this unseemly payback operates.