Gregory George Katsas (born August 6, 1964) is a

United States circuit judge In the United States, federal judges are judges who serve on courts established under Article Three of the U.S. Constitution. They include the chief justice and the associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the circuit judges of the U.S. ...

of the

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate co ...

Early life and education

Katsas was born in 1964 in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

; his parents were Greek immigrants. Katsas graduated from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1986 with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

'' cum laude''. He then attended Harvard Law School, where he was an executive editor of the '' Harvard Law Review'' and an editor of the ''

Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy The ''Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy'' is a law review for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship. It was established by Harvard Law School students Spencer Abraham and Stephen Eberhard in 1978, leading to the founding of the Fed ...

''. He graduated from Harvard in 1989 with a Juris Doctor ''cum laude''.

Legal career

After law school, Katsas served as a law clerk to Judge

Edward R. Becker Edward Roy Becker (May 4, 1933 – May 19, 2006) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pen ...

of the

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (in case citations, 3d Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts for the following districts: * District of Delaware * District of New Jersey * Ea ...

from 1989 to 1990. From 1990 to 1991, Katsas clerked for

Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 1 ...

, who was then a judge of the District of Columbia Circuit. Thomas was appointed to the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

in 1991, where Katsas clerked for him again from 1991 to 1992. Katsas then entered private practice at the

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

office of the law firm Jones Day, where he specialized in

civil Civil may refer to: *Civic virtue, or civility *Civil action, or lawsuit * Civil affairs *Civil and political rights *Civil disobedience *Civil engineering *Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism *Civilian, someone not a membe ...

and appellate litigation. He argued more than 75 appeals, including three cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. He was at Jones Day from 1992 to 2001, becoming a partner in 1999. From 2001 to 2009, Katsas served in various positions within the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Stat ...

, including

Assistant Attorney General Many of the divisions and offices of the United States Department of Justice are headed by an assistant attorney general. The president of the United States appoints individuals to the position of assistant attorney general with the advice and ...

for the Civil Division and Acting Associate Attorney General. Katsas returned to Jones Day from 2009 to 2017. From January to December 2017, Katsas served as Deputy

White House Counsel The White House counsel is a senior staff appointee of the president of the United States whose role is to advise the president on all legal issues concerning the president and their administration. The White House counsel also oversees the Of ...

Federal judicial service

On September 7, 2017, President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

nominated Katsas to serve as a United States Circuit Judge of the

, to the seat vacated by Judge

Janice Rogers Brown Janice Rogers Brown (born May 11, 1949) is an American jurist. She served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2005 to 2017 and before that, Associate Justice of the Cal ...

, who retired on August 31, 2017. On October 17, 2017, a hearing on his nomination was held before the

Senate Judiciary Committee The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nominations ...

. On November 9, 2017, his nomination was reported out of committee by an 11–9 vote. On November 27, 2017, the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

invoked

cloture Cloture (, also ), closure or, informally, a guillotine, is a motion or process in parliamentary procedure aimed at bringing debate to a quick end. The cloture procedure originated in the French National Assembly, from which the name is taken. ' ...

by a 52–48 vote. On November 28, 2017, by a party line vote except for

John Neely Kennedy John Neely Kennedy (born November 21, 1951) is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Louisiana since 2017. He served as the Louisiana State Treasurer from 2000 to 2017. Kennedy has been a mem ...

R-LA and

Joe Manchin Joseph Manchin III (born August 24, 1947) is an American politician and businessman serving as the senior United States senator from West Virginia, a seat he has held since 2010. A member of the Democratic Party, Manchin was the 34th governor o ...

D-WV, with

Bob Corker Robert Phillips Corker Jr. (born August 24, 1952) is an American businessman and politician who served as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 2007 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he served as Chair of the Senate Foreign Rela ...

and John McCain absent, the Senate voted to confirm Katsas by a 50–48 vote. He received his judicial commission on December 8, 2017. In 2017, Katsas

recused Judicial disqualification, also referred to as recusal, is the act of abstaining from participation in an official action such as a legal proceeding due to a conflict of interest of the presiding court official or administrative officer. Appli ...

himself from matters regarding the Mueller's probe on which he personally worked, but said he would consider the facts of a case before making a decision. On September 9, 2020, President Trump included him on a list of his potential nominees to the Supreme Court. On July 6, 2021, Judge Katsas gave the tie-breaking 2-1 vote that overturned the FDA's ban on GEDs used predominantly by the

Judge Rotenberg Center The Judge Rotenberg Center (founded in 1971 as the Behavior Research Institute) is an institution in Canton, Massachusetts, United States, for people with developmental disabilities, emotional disorders, and autistic-like behaviors. The center ...

on disabled patients in Canton, MA.

Memberships

He is a member of the

Federalist Society The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies (abbreviated as FedSoc) is an American conservative and libertarian legal organization that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Headquarter ...

, and also a member of the

American Academy of Appellate Lawyers The American Academy of Appellate Lawyers is a non-profit organization consisting of the Fellows who have been elected to the Academy. It was founded in 1990 and incorporated as a 501(c)(3) in 1991. Its mission is to "advance the highest standards ...

Awards

In 2009, he was awarded the

Edmund Randolph Edmund Jennings Randolph (August 10, 1753 September 12, 1813) was a Founding Father of the United States, attorney, and the 7th Governor of Virginia. As a delegate from Virginia, he attended the Constitutional Convention and helped to create ...

award for outstanding service, the highest award bestowed by the U.S. Department of Justice.

References

External links

*
Biography at U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
*
Appearances at the U.S. Supreme Court
from the

Oyez Project The Oyez Project at the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law is an unofficial online multimedia archive of the Supreme Court of the United States, especially audio of oral arguments. The website "aims to be a complete a ...

*
Articles about Greg Katsas
AbovetheLaw.com. , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Katsas, Gregory George 1964 births Living people 20th-century American lawyers 21st-century American lawyers 21st-century American judges American people of Greek descent Federalist Society members George W. Bush administration personnel Harvard Law School alumni Jones Day people Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States Lawyers from Washington, D.C. People from Boston Princeton University alumni Trump administration personnel United States Assistant Attorneys General for the Civil Division United States Associate Attorneys General United States court of appeals judges appointed by Donald Trump Washington, D.C., Republicans