Report: Trump’s Judicial Nominees Avoid Answering Questions Related to 2020 Election, January 6
Anything to please the president who nominated them, it seems.
A new report from Demand Justice examines the responses to written questions for the record — from Trump’s lifetime judicial nominees — and found that all 27 nominees who submitted responses this year “have provided dishonest and misleading answers about the 2020 election and the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
In “A Pattern of Evasion: How President Trump’s Judicial Nominees Avoid the Truth to Secure Lifetime Appointments,” Demand Justice notes the following, according to their press release:
No judicial nominee would affirmatively state that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
No judicial nominee would speak to the events that transpired on January 6, 2021, with most describing them as a “political issue” that they couldn’t comment on further.
Nominees answered almost identically to avoid answering questions about the results of the 2020 election, instead commenting on the congressional “certification” process or saying that Biden “served” as president.
“It is unprecedented for lifetime nominees to the federal bench to provide dishonest and misleading answers about historical facts — and it is deeply concerning that Trump’s nominees are parotting such strikingly similar language, the President’s own language, to avoid telling the truth,” said Demand Justice President Josh Orton. “And yet, fifteen Democratic Senators still voted to confirm at least one of these nominees — which is simply unacceptable.”
As Demand Justice notes, despite these responses, Senators Coons, Durbin, Fetterman, Hassan, Heinrich, Kaine, Kelly, King, Klobuchar, Peters, Reed, Schiff, Shaheen, Welch, and Whitehouse have voted for at least one of these judicial nominees.
Demand Justice’s report builds on my reporting last month about how the first 25 judicial nominees responded to questions for the record, which included an analysis of how nominees answered questions related to the 2020 election, the January 6 insurrection, protecting law clerks from discrimination, correctly decided Supreme Court decisions, birthright citizenship, judicial diversity, treating trans people with dignity, and abortion.
More about how nominees responded to questions related to the 2020 election and January 6 is available in the Demand Justice report here.
What’s next on judicial nominations
The Senate is out this week for Veterans Day and will return next Tuesday, November 18. If Senate Majority Leader John Thune files cloture on any judicial nominees that day, they could, theoretically, be confirmed that Thursday, November 20. There are currently four lifetime nominees — all North Carolina district court nominees — pending on the Senate floor, and all four are included in Demand Justice’s analysis above.
Then, the Senate is scheduled to be out the following week for Thanksgiving — returning the first week of December. Additional nominees could be on the Senate floor by then, though two Mississippi judicial nominees have been stalled in committee as Senator Thom Tillis, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee from North Carolina, negotiates unrelated issues with Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi. Two Louisiana district court nominees could also advance to the floor before then.
Additional nominees who have reportedly been nominated could receive a hearing as soon as this month, too.
The Senate is currently scheduled to be in session the first three weeks of December.