Steve Grasz, President Donald Trump's nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, pushed back on the American Bar Association's review process in a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday.

The ABA recently rated Grasz, a senior counsel at Husch Blackwell in Omaha and a former Nebraska chief deputy attorney general, as not qualified for the position. It was the first time the ABA, which routinely rates federal judicial nominees, had publicly given such a rating for a circuit court nominee since 2006. Republican senators chalked the rating up to partisanship in Wednesday's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Grasz said during the hearing that while he respected the ABA's process, his experience with the review and interview process was not professional.

“I would tell you that the initial interview was conducted professionally and respectfully,” Grasz told Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. “The follow-up interview was a completely different experience.”

The ABA released a statement Monday from Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease partner Pamela Bresnahan, who chairs the standing committee on the federal judiciary, that outlined the organization's process and reasoning for the rating. The group said Grasz received the rating because it appeared his personal biases rendered him unable to make fair decisions as a judge, and that there are concerns about his temperament.

The statement said after an initial evaluator, University of Arkansas professor Cynthia Nance, recommended Grasz be rated “not qualified,” a second evaluator conducted a supplemental evaluation. That evaluation included an interview with Grasz as well as lawyers and judges who know him. The second evaluator was Fenwick & West partner Laurence Pulgram, of San Francisco, according to the statement.

Pulgram referred questions to Bresnahan, who said in an email she will testify on the ABA's evaluation of Grasz before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Nov. 15.

“Until then, I don't believe it is valuable to respond to one aspect of Mr. Grasz' testimony,” Bresnahan said in an email. “Suffice it to say, the ABA Standing Committee doesn't necessarily agree with Mr. Grasz, but the Committee believes it will be more valuable all around to have a more fulsome discussion about Mr. Grasz' nomination on the 15th.”

A Senate Judiciary spokesman did not reply to a request for comment on the hearing. The ABA also issued a written statement noting that the organization “does not take into consideration a nominee's philosophy, political affiliation or ideology.”

“In the case of Leonard Steven Grasz, for example, committee members interviewed 207 lawyers, judges and others who have worked with Mr. Grasz in various capacities, some for decades,” the statement said.

During the hearing, Grasz did not name Pulgram, but said in response to a question from Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, that in his second ABA interview, it “was made very clear” the interviewer did not like that he is pro-life. Later, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, asked Grasz if the ABA evaluators asked about his personal opinions. Grasz replied that during the second interview, he was “asked repeatedly” for his “personal opinions on social issues including abortion” and that it “seemed to be a topic of great interest to the reviewer.”

Grasz also said that during the second interview, the interviewer “repeatedly used, in a negative connotation, the phrase 'you people.'”

“And at one point I stopped him, and I said 'Sir, who do you mean by you people?' And he said 'conservatives and Republicans,'” Grasz said.

Grasz also said the evaluator asked where his children went to school.

“I was kind of surprised at that question,” he said. Flake asked if Grasz could think of any reason the ABA would want to know that. Grasz said no.

Grasz's children attend a Lutheran school, Flake noted.