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(CNSNews.com) -- The sniping over President Bush's judicial nominees is reaching critical mass, with the Senate expected to vote soon on the so-called nuclear option -- a Senate rule change that would end Democrat filibusters of judicial nominees.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid prompted outrage from Republicans on Thursday, when he criticized one of those stalled judicial nominees on the Senate floor.

"Henry Saad would have been filibustered anyway," Reid said. "He's one of those nominees. All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the F.B.I., and I think we would all agree there is a problem there."

Reid didn't elaborate, but Republicans erupted.

"It is unclear whether non-Judiciary Committee Senators are even allowed to read a nominee's FBI files, which are highly confidential, but they sure as heck should not be talking about it on TV from the Senate floor," said Sean Rushton, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, a group that is lobbying for an up-or-down vote on President Bush's seven stalled nominees.

"Can you think of a better way to trash someone's reputation -- say that there is bad stuff from an FBI investigation in a file somewhere and leave that hanging? This is character assassination of the lowest order and completely improper," Rushton said.

Judge Saad, who now sits on the Michigan Court of Appeals, has been nominated to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit (in Cincinnati).

In his speech on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Reid criticized Saad, but he also offered to stop the Democrat filibuster of three other nominees from Michigan -- if Senate Republicans don't invoke the nuclear option.

No way, Republicans indicated: Senate Majority Leader Frist on Thursday continued to insist on an up-or-down vote for all of President Bush's nominees.

'Unmitigated gall'

The Center for Individual Freedom, a free market advocacy group, called Reid's criticism of Saad irresponsible and unconscionable: "This marks a new low in the obstructionists' campaign to smear nominees to the federal bench, and signals the Democrats' utter desperation," said CFIF President Jeffrey Mazzella.

"Senator Reid has the unmitigated gall to imply that something in Judge Saad's F.B.I. file raises suspicion. Of course, Senator Reid offers no specifics, and everything we know about Judge Saad contradicts Senator Reid's unsubstantiated attack."

The Center for Individual Freedom notes that Judge Saad was first nominated to the federal bench in 1992; nominated again in 2001; and re-nominated in 2003 and 2005. He has been vetted repeatedly, but his nomination has never come up for a yes-or-no vote in the full Senate.

"By attacking Judge Saad through implication and innuendo, Senator Reid leads listeners to conclude the worst," Mazzella said. "With his unsubstantiated charges, Senator Reid unfairly and irresponsibly defames Judge Saad."

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