'A dangerous record': Alarm as Trump continues far-right 'crusade against our courts'
04 June
Donald Trump speaks at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., December 22, 2024. REUTERS/Cheney Orr
U.S. President Donald Trump worked to force the federal judiciary to the far right with 234 confirmed nominees during his previous term, and he continued that mission on Wednesday, when the first slate of his second-term selections attended a Senate hearing.
Trump has announced 11 nominees, but only Whitney Hermandorfer, his pick to serve on the Cincinnati, Ohio-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, and four candidates to be district court judges in Missouri—Zachary Bluestone, Joshua Divine, Maria Lanahan, and Cristian Stevens—came before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which considers them before a full floor vote.
Just hours before the hearing began, Maggie Jo Buchanan, interim executive director of the advocacy group Demand Justice, wrote for Salonthat "Trump's judicial nominees are key to the far right's crusade against our courts."
"If confirmed, these nominees would be expected to not only look the other way as the building blocks of America's democracy are gutted, but to pave the way for Trump's radical agenda—gutting reproductive freedoms and allowing the administration to take healthcare away from millions," she warned. "Many of them have histories of defending anti-choice legislation and other radical policies championed by Trump and his MAGA allies in Congress."
"Trump is picking up where he left off in his first term by using judicial nominees to advance an extreme agenda that undermines Americans' fundamental freedoms."
Buchanan wasn't alone in sounding the alarm about threats to healthcare. In anticipation of the hearing, the watchdog Accountable.US published a report detailing how "Trump's first judicial picks have a dangerous record of undermining fundamental freedoms, with a number of them who have a record of directly targeting reproductive rights."
Accountable.US cited Hermandorfer defending Tennessee's near-total ban on abortion as director of strategic litigation for the state attorney general's office, as well as Divine, Missouri's solicitor general, and his deputy, Lanahan, supporting extreme anti-choice efforts in their state.
"Trump is picking up where he left off in his first term by using judicial nominees to advance an extreme agenda that undermines Americans' fundamental freedoms," said Accountable.US president Caroline Ciccone. "But this time, Trump is selecting nominees with personal allegiances to the president, who will go even further in using the bench to cut off Americans' rights. Senators should know a vote to confirm Trump's judicial nominees is a vote to radically undermine reproductive freedom."
Reproductive rights aren't the only topical concern. Buchanan noted that "some of the nominees in this first slate have also supported Trump's attack on birthright citizenship, which has been widely viewed as unconstitutional. And in true loyalist fashion, one worked to defend Trump by seeking to interfere in New York's attempt to hold Trump accountable for state crimes."
The nominee who got involved in the New York case is Divine, who is also under fire for targeting the Biden administration's attempt to provide student debt relief. Student Borrower Protection Center legal director Winston Berkman-Breen said Wednesday that the nominee "built his political brand off the suffering of tens of millions of student loan borrowers across this country, and now the Trump administration is rewarding him with a position that will let him enshrine his personal ideologies into law."
"Time and time again in his lawsuits challenging legal student loan payment and relief programs, Divine took extreme positions at odds with traditional judicial interpretations related to injury, standing, and venue," Berkman-Breen pointed out. "Because of Divine, millions of student loan borrowers remain buried in crushing debt."
"Divine's actions exceeded the bounds of zealous advocacy and were a direct affront to judicial procedure," he added. "Americans deserve a judge who will review the facts of the case before them and apply the law under the Constitution and as passed by Congress—not an ideologue who will manipulate those laws to obtain the outcome he prefers."
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 240 national organizations, similarly asserted in a Tuesday letter that "at a time when so many of our fundamental civil rights are under attack, we need to trust that our judges will impartially and fairly rule on cases without bias or animus."
The coalition specifically took aim at Trump's 6th Circuit nominee, writing that "unfortunately, a careful review of Ms. Hermandorfer’s record shows a demonstrated hostility towards our civil and human rights that is disqualifying for a judicial nominee. We strongly urge the Senate to oppose her nomination."
Earthjustice Action legislative director of the Access to Justice Program Coby Dolan stressed in a Wednesday statement that "we need principled judges who will uphold the law and serve as a bulwark against this administration's brazen attacks on the rule of law and our environment."
"It is the Senate's constitutional obligation to rigorously scrutinize these nominees, asking tough questions to determine whether they are impartial, believe in the government's ability to tackle our most pressing issues, and understand the difference between facts and politics," Dolan added. "We need oversight, not rubber stamps."
The Senate is controlled by the GOP, but only narrowly. Buchanan argued that "given what we are seeing out of the administration, there is no acceptable reason for Senate Democrats to assist their Republican colleagues in pushing through Trump's judicial nominees."
The committee's ranking member, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Wednesday pointed to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's recent decision to limit the American Bar Association's (ABA) access to information about judicial nominees as proof that "the Trump administration is clearly just trying to cover for unqualified and extreme nominees."
Timereported last week that Bondi's "move against the ABA came a day after Trump announced six new judicial nominees, which included top Justice Department official Emil Bove being put forward to serve as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit."
The other five newly announced nominees—Ed Artau, Kyle Dudek, Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe, John Guard, and Jordan E. Pratt—are on track to serve as district judges in Florida.