When Donald Trump finished his first term, he left a radically reshaped federal judiciary in his wake. The president successfully appointed 234 judges to lifetime positions, including three Supreme Court justices, leaving a stamp of conservatism on the courts for decades to come.
Now, federal judges have never been more in the public eye. As Trump aims to enact his unlawful agenda, the courts have become key bulwarks against the far right’s rising tide. Even Trump-appointed judges have ruled against him — much to the MAGA movement’s chagrin.
This time around, Trump has less judicial ground to cover. Joe Biden similarly rushed to fill seats during his presidency, with the Senate confirming 235 of his nominees. That gave the president the fewest federal judicial vacancies at the start of a term — just 40 — in more than three decades. But Trump’s second-term picks thus far reveal that he’s invested in pushing the judiciary even further to the right. Frustrated with the rulings of his prior nominees, he’s stacking the courts with young MAGA loyalists who will gladly bend to his authoritarian yoke.
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Trump’s latest nominees went before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 4. But even before the hearing, Trump indicated that this nomination cycle would be different from previous ones. In late May, his administration blocked the American Bar Association (ABA) from conducting its longstanding pre-hearing vetting process. The country’s main legal professional organization has historically worked with both Republican and Democratic administrations to review judicial nominees and rate their qualifications. Breaking from precedent, the Trump administration has barred the ABA from accessing nonpublic information on the judges and has instructed nominees not to fill out the organization’s questionnaires. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) told Courthouse News that the decision was made because the ABA is an “ideologically captured institution” and compared it to “any other leftist activist group.”
Trump has also loudly severed ties with Leonard Leo, the chair of the conservative legal organization, the Federalist Society. Leo and the Federalist Society previously played an instrumental role in advising Trump on judicial nominees. However, after some of Trump’s tariffs were temporarily blocked by a judge he appointed — but not one that Leo recommended — the president called Leo a “sleazebag.” He took to Truth Social in late May to air his grievances, writing, “I am so disappointed in the Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous judicial nominations.” Conservative lawyers and academics associated with the Federalist Society also filed a legal brief challenging Trump’s tariffs, and another free-market legal group affiliated with Leo sued to stop them.
Trump is now charting a new course, opting to nominate less experienced judges who he thinks will aid and abet his anti-democratic agenda. Five of Trump’s judicial picks appeared before the Senate last week, including Whitney D. Hermandorfer, nominated to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and four nominees for Missouri district courts. Hermandorfer’s nomination has received the most pushback, since the 37-year-old attorney lacks the 12 or more years of work experience recommended for one of the nation’s highest courts.
Hermandorfer’s hearing testimony raised red flags over not only her lack of qualifications but also her disdain for democracy. When Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) asked Hermandorfer if she would ever advise a client to violate a federal court order, she declined to give a yes-or-no answer and instead pointed to the possibility of extraordinary situations. She also failed to say that only Congress — not the president — can legally suspend habeas corpus (a legal procedure that allows an individual to challenge their unlawful detention) and instead classified its suspension as “an issue that is under active consideration in the political branches.” And Hermandorfer, who’s previously filed legal briefs supporting the Trump administration’s effort to end birthright citizenship, refused to affirm a basic legal truth: that birthright citizenship is protected by the Constitution.
Additionally, while Trump has recently tried to distance himself from extreme anti-abortion rhetoric given its unpopularity, his nominees have extreme anti-abortion track records. Hermandorfer was lead counsel in a case defending Tennessee’s total abortion ban. Missouri Eastern and Western District Court nominee Joshua Divine led legal efforts to stop a ballot initiative from enshrining abortion rights in Missouri’s constitution. Divine is also currently representing Missouri in its case against the Food and Drug Administration over its approval of the abortion medication mifepristone, and Missouri Eastern District Court nominee Maria Lanahan has supported mifepristone bans as well.
By the end of his second term, Trump is expected to have appointed enough federal judges to break Ronald Reagan’s record of 383. The Brookings Institution predicts that these appointments will likely tilt the court of appeals in Republicans’ favor, though only by a slight amount.
But since judges serve life sentences, Trump’s appointments will define U.S. legal outcomes for generations to come. And even though he’s working with only 49 judicial vacancies currently, Trump has made his endgame clear: more presidential control over the courts, and fewer people standing in his way.
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