'Push the envelope': How Trump plans to confirm hundreds of far-right judges in 2nd term
Should he win the November election, former President Donald Trump will likely enter the White House with a detailed list of far-right jurists he plans to install in federal judgeships. And the main criteria for a judicial appointment will likely be loyalty to Trump, the MAGA agenda and accomplishing far-right political objectives.
CNN reported Saturday that during his first term, Trump managed to confirm 234 judicial appointees, which include 177 district judges, 54 powerful judges on influential federal circuit courts, and three Supreme Court justices. Even one conservative legal expert opined to CNN that Trump's goal of politicizing the judiciary would have negative repercussions on the justice system.
"I fear that in a second term, you might see a reelected President Trump imposing more of a political test on prospective judges and looking for people who will be more loyal to him personally or to the Republican Party in general," Society for the Rule of Law executive director Gregg Nunziata told the network.
READ MORE: 'Off the rails': Expert slams Trump-appointed judge's ruling on GOP rep's Biden lawsuit
Multiple Trump-appointed judges have already left a noticeable mark on the federal bench. in a June decision, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas — who Trump appointed during his first year as president — ruled that Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) had cause to sue the Biden administration over its Middle Eastern policy because the congressman occasionally traveled to Israel.
Judge Aileen Cannon, who Trump appointed to the Southern District of Florida months before he was voted out of office, has arguably been Trump's biggest gift in the federal court system. In her oversight of his Mar-a-Lago trial (likely the strongest of the four cases against him), her numerous procedural delays and insistence on scheduling hearings to resolve legal questions already resolved by other courts, she has effectively insured Trump won't have to stand trial in her courtroom before the November election. She notably refused multiple requests to hand the complicated case off to more senior judges with experience in handling matters related to classified government documents.
“Some of Trump’s judicial appointees really push the envelope in an ideological way,” former George H.W. Bush administration DOJ official Donald B. Ayer told CNN. “They do things because that’s the result they want to achieve, and that’s just not how the legal system is supposed to work. It’s not supposed to be primarily driven to achieve a given outcome.”
If Trump wins a second term, he'll not only be positioned to confirm potentially two new Supreme Court justices assuming Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas retire, but he could also fill hundreds of new judicial vacancies between 2025 and 2029. And the former president has indicated that he plans to make sure judges are young enough to sit on the bench for decades into the future.
READ MORE: Cannon refusing judges' requests to hand off Trump case is a 'break-glass situation': expert
"We like people in their thirties so they’re there for 50 years or 40 years," Trump told the National Rifle Association at the group's May meeting in Texas.
The network reported that during Trump's first term, he managed to flip partisan control of three of the country's 13 judicial circuits, meaning that appeals from those circuit's district courts are more likely to be friendlier to Trump and Republicans. That trend could continue under a second four-year term in the White House.
"I will once again appoint rock solid conservative judges to do what they have to do in the mold of Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, a great gentleman, and another great gentleman, Clarence Thomas," Trump told the Family Research Council (a far-right evangelical group) last September.
Click here to read CNN's report in its entirety.
READ MORE: Judge Cannon got so many complaints an appeals court cut them off
