Federal judge nominee lists 20-year-old letter to the editor as example of his writing

Asked to provide examples of his writing and editing experience, Aaron C. Peterson, the Sullivan/Trump choice for the federal bench in Alaska, came up with 11 state press releases and a 2005 letter to the editor in which he attacked Democrats and claimed there was not an obesity epidemic in the U.S.

Peterson, 44, listed no books, no articles, no law review commentaries, no newspaper columns, no magazine columns, no blog entries, no speeches, no talks, no panel discussions and no conference appearances.

He submitted the 20-year-old letter because the Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire asked for all letters to the editor, which makes this lone exhibit of his letter-writing skills all the stranger.

Like his statement that he is a member of the right-wing Federalist Society, but only joined this year—suggesting that someone told him he better join the right club before facing the Senate—the absence of a written record makes me wonder about his qualifications.

Peterson said he did some criminal work after law school, but has handled civil cases entirely since 2019 for the state, with a focus on “sovereign interests in natural resources and fisheries.”

It may just be that Peterson is young—so he might be able to hold the job for decades—and that he is a true believer in the Republican statehood defense industry, which portrays Alaska as a victim of federal overreach, persecuted by Outside environmental groups that try to stop Outside corporations from having their way.

Those appear to the requirements to avoid Sullivan’s “red line,” which is to have someone who agrees with his view of the law.

Peterson wrote on his application that a lawyer connected to Gov. Mike Dunleavy advised him to apply to become a judge and seek the endorsement of Sullivan’s hand-picked selection committee. Sullivan appointed former Gov. Sean Parnell, an ally of Sullivan, to lead the council.

The Sullivan committee met in secret, did not seek public comment and never released the results of its meetings.

The Sullivan committee signed off on Peterson, as did Sullivan and Trump, while Sen. Lisa Murkowski was excluded from the process. She met Peterson in the last week of October, more than a month after Peterson said the White House said he was likely to get a nomination.

The Sullivan committee application, which required Peterson to name his favorite judge and his favorite Supreme Court case, among other things, should be released to Alaskans. But Sullivan has kept it secret.

So we are forced to look at Peterson’s old letter to the editor, inconsequential press releases and court filings—the latter usually have multiple authors—to guess about his views and his writing skills.

Here is Peterson’s letter, published August 9, 2005 in the Anchorage Daily News.

With the news that our commander in chief is in "superior" physical condition, the Democratic National Party issues a press release stating that President Bush has undermined the health of the country's 300 million inhabitants by failing to promote physical fitness!

This raises an interesting question. Does the DNC truly believe that it is up to the federal government to make people exercise?

Perhaps the president could institute mandatory calisthenics reminiscent of Maoist China! One hour every morning of jumping-jacks and mountain-climbers, anyone who wishes not to participate in such activities, off to the gulag! Would that solve the "obesity epidemic" that the media is all of the sudden so concerned with?

Where was this concern when Clinton was chasing bacon-cheeseburgers with fudge shakes The entire "obesity epidemic" is blown out of proportion to begin with. A bookkeeping change in 1998 is responsible for more than 35 percent of the "obesity" in the U.S. when the official line for "overweight" American men of average height increased. In a matter of seconds, millions of Americans suddenly became overweight.

Should Americans exercise more? Probably. But in a free society it is not up to the federal government to enforce. It is certainly not up to the federal government to spend my tax dollars on someone who refuses to put down the eclair and hop on the elliptical.

Peterson, who grew up in Eagle River, attended Anchorage Christian School, served three years in the Air Force and earned a bachelor’s degree at UAA before attending law school at Gonzaga.

As to the 11 run-of-the-mill press releases that Peterson said he had a hand in, we have no clue if he wrote any of them or simply looked them over. The Department of Law has its own publicity employees who write press releases.

None of the press releases, all of them short pieces about fish and game matters, rise to the level of family keepsakes.

They consist mainly of quotes from former Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor, Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang.

The most recent example is this 250-word entry from July 2, 2025, which includes a quote from Taylor: “I want to congratulate the hard work and dedication of our Department of Law attorneys, especially Aaron Peterson, who have been tirelessly defending Alaska's interests."

Asked to provide copies of “any testimony, official statements or other communications” that he prepared for his work as an attorney, Peterson listed 17 memos he gave to the fish board since 2019.

Almost every memo contains law department comments on regulation proposals before the fish board, such as this four-page document from 2024.

Like the press releases and the letter to the editor, the memos don’t reveal much about how he might approach his job as a federal judge.

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