Trump begins nominating judges
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
President Trump on April 30 in Washington, D.C. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
President Trump has begun the process of staffing judicial vacancies.
The big picture: During his first term, Trump flipped the federal judiciary with the help of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), together setting a record on the number of judges confirmed.
- Trump 2.0 is having a slower start, though there are only 46 judicial vacancies to fill, compared to more than 100 at the start of his first term.
Zoom in: Trump made first judicial nomination of his second term last week, naming Whitney Hermandorfer as his pick. The lawyer served under Tennessee's Republican attorney general.
- The president announced a series of nominations Tuesday for judges to serve on the U.S. District Court in Missouri, including Zachary Bluestone, Joshua Divine and Maria Lanahan.
- Bluestone serves as appellate chief in the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of Missouri, and Lanahan is the state's principal deputy solicitor general.
- Divine has clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and previously served as chief counsel to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).
Between the lines: Trump can again nominate GOP-friendly judges to fill lifetime appointments across the country, especially as he questions the courts and tries to weigh the power of the executive branch against that of the judiciary.
- He and his allies have long railed against a justice system they view as unfair toward conservatives, with frequent rants against district judges and their ability to block executive actions nationwide, Axios' Stef W. Kight reports.
- Trump and his allies have recently pushed to have judges who did not rule in favor of the administration impeached.
Zoom out: Republicans have so far been slower to begin the process of judicial confirmations compared to former President Biden and Trump in 2017.
- By this point in the first Trump term, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch had already been confirmed and a federal judge was in the pipeline for a May approval, Senate records show.
- At this point in Biden's term, the first batch of judges had been sent to the Senate and seven were confirmed in June.
Flashback: 234 federal judges were confirmed under the first Trump administration — including three members of the Supreme Court.
Go deeper: Senate awaits Trump judges
