Ryan Bounds
Ryan Wesley Bounds (born June 28, 1973) is an American attorney serving as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Oregon. Bounds had been a nominee for a position as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Already controversial, the nomination lost bipartisan support for confirmation in the Senate when it was revealed that, as an undergraduate, Bounds wrote columns criticizing outrage over vandalism of a gay pride statue, arguing student efforts to promote racial diversity in fact entrench racial intolerance, suggesting multicultural campus groups were in  reality an effort to extort the university, and asserting "there is nothing really inherently wrong with the University failing to punish an alleged rapist—regardless his guilt—in the absence of adequate certainty," among other things. In July 2018, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the president would withdraw the nomination. Biography. Bounds earned his Bachelor of Arts in psychology and political science, with honors and distinction, from Stanford University and his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the "Yale Law Journal" and editor-in-chief of the "Yale Law & Policy Review". Early  in his career, Bounds served as a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Chief of Staff in the Office of Legal Policy at the United States Department of Justice. He also previously served as Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, acting as the White House's primary policy expert on criminal and civil justice issues. Before becoming a special prosecutor he served as Special Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. He currently serves as an  Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Oregon, where he prosecutes criminal cases on behalf of the United States. Failed nomination to U.S. Court of Appeals. On September 7, 2017, President Trump nominated Bounds to serve as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, to the seat vacated by Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain, who assumed senior status on December 31, 2016. One week after Bounds was nominated, both of Oregon's U.S. Senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, announced they would not return the Senate Blue slips for Bounds, saying they  had not been adequately consulted on the nomination. The White House Counsel's Office said that it had contacted both senators on several occasions before nominating Bounds, but received very little feedback from either senator. On January 3, 2018, Bounds's nomination was returned to the President under Rule XXXI, Paragraph 6 of the United States Senate. On January 5, 2018, President Donald Trump announced his intent to renominate Bounds to a federal judgeship. On January 8, 2018, his renomination was sent to the Senate. In February 2018, the bipartisan commission cited by Wyden and Merkley found Bounds to be  one of four suitable applicants for the judgeship. However, the Senators continued to refuse to turn in their blue slips, citing college newspaper articles Bounds wrote while a student at Stanford University in the 1990s. On May 9, 2018, a hearing on his nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee. On June 7, 2018, his nomination was reported out of committee by an 11–10 party-line vote. On July 18, 2018, the Senate voted 50–49 to invoke cloture on his nomination. On July 19, 2018, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that Bounds's nomination would be withdrawn after  Senator Tim Scott, a Republican, announced he could not support the nomination with the information he had at that point; Scott's stance left Bounds's nomination short of the number of votes needed for confirmation. Scott is the first African American to be elected to the Senate from the Deep South since the 19th Century. On July 24, 2018, the Bounds nomination was officially withdrawn. Prior to his nomination, Bounds did not disclose controversial columns written by him in "The Stanford Review" about campus sexual assault, workers' rights, ethnic minorities and gender discrimination to the Oregon judicial selection committee  convened by the state's congressional delegation. Bounds said he was instructed to provide only material dating back to law school to the selection committee by a staffer of Senator Ron Wyden, who had helped to convene the commission. He did, however, provide those writings to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Subsequent to public disclosure of Bounds' college writings, five of the seven members of the Oregon selection committee indicated that had they seen those writings, they would not have recommended Bounds as a candidate for the vacancy. During his confirmation hearing, Bounds apologized for the writings, saying "I  share the concerns of many that the rhetoric I used in debating campus politics back in the early '90s on Stanford's campus was often overheated, overbroad" and that his views were "not as respectful" as they should have been. Senator Ron Wyden said he didn't believe in the sincerity of Bounds' apology, feeling it was intended only to secure his confirmation. "Nominees for the federal bench must be held to a higher standard," he said. Memberships. Bounds has been a member of the Federalist Society since approximately 2000.