Calmes: Trump's judicial nominees are fact-challenged and unfit

6 min Click here to listen to this article Share via Close extra sharing options Email Facebook X LinkedIn Threads Reddit WhatsApp Copy Link URL Copied! Print 0:00 0:00 1x This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. Was the Capitol attacked on Jan. 6, 2021? Can Donald Trump be elected to a third term as president? The answers are, of course, “Joe Biden,” “yes” and “no.” Any fact- and reality-based American would say so. But that humongous class of people pointedly doesn’t include the president of the United States. And apparently for that reason, his nominees for federal judgeships — the very jobs in which you’d most want fact-based individuals — hem, haw, stammer and ultimately decline to give direct answers when Democratic senators test them with such easy-peasy questions at confirmation hearings. One after another, month after month, Trump nominees for district and appeals courts across the land say that the answers to the questions are matters of debate, of “significant political dispute.” Well, they’re in dispute only because Trump says they are, as does every ambitious officeholder and office-seeker desperate to remain in the retributive ruler’s good graces — including, alas, would-be judges. To watch them squirm and then squirt out the same rehearsed reply, the same legalistic word salad, just like the dozens of nominees before them would be hilarious (see below) if it weren’t so ominous for the rule of law in the nation. Trump nominees for other high-ranking jobs, likewise prepped for Senate Democrats’ questions by their Trump handlers, give the same rote response. But the fact that candidates for lifetime seats on the federal bench, making decisions of life-changing consequences for millions of Americans, would choose to dodge the truth is most sickening. In their truth-trolling to keep Trump happy, lest he yank their chance at new black robes, these candidates fail the test of judicial independence. As one Democrat, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, told four district judge nominees last week at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, their humiliating hedging “on an issue of fact” — Biden won in 2020 — “reflects not only on your honesty but really on your fitness to be a federal judge.” Indeed. That judicial nominees would curry Trump’s favor bodes ill for future federal jurisprudence in the one branch of government that’s stood up for the rule of law against Trump, repeatedly, when Congress and the Supreme Court have not. To be fair, a number of judges confirmed in Trump’s first term have been among the many who’ve ruled against his and his administration’s second-term abuses of power. Yet just as Trump has populated his Cabinet and executive branch with sycophants, unlike in Trump 1.0, he’s obviously applying new litmus tests to potential judges. One of them, clearly, is playing along with his election lies. His nominees’ failure to speak truth to Trump’s power should be disqualifying. But they’re not disqualified, because the Senate is run by Republicans who share their fear of him. That fact is a big reason to hope that Democrats capture the majority in November’s midterm elections and that, under new management, the Senate will finally take seriously its constitutional “advice and consent” responsibility to act as a check on Trump nominees for the final two years of his term — including, perhaps, one for the Supreme Court. And, yes, this is Trump’s final term, for all of his teasing about “Trump 2028.” The Constitution’s 22nd Amendment says as much in its opening line: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” Yet the four wannabe district judges at last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing — Michael J. Hendershot of Ohio; Arthur Roberts Jones and John G.E. Marck, both of Texas; and Jeffrey T. Kuntz of Florida — struggled over that clear language. All four hesitated when Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, asked them to describe the amendment. He even read its initial words before querying Marck, “Is President Trump eligible to run for president again in 2028?” Marck paused, then sputtered: “Senator, with ah, without considering all the facts and looking at everything, depending on what the situation is, this to me strikes as more of a hypothetical of something that could be raised.” “It’s not a hypothetical,” Coons countered, then asked again whether Trump is “eligible to run for a third term under our Constitution.” “Um, I would have to, to review the, the actual wording of it,” Marck blabbered. Coons turned to the others: “Anybody else brave enough to say that the Constitution of the United States prevents President Trump from seeking a third term?” Silence. “Anybody willing to apply the Constitution by its plain language in the 22nd Amendment?” Coons persisted. Crickets. His Democratic colleague, Blumenthal, inquired of the foursome, “Who won the 2020 election?” All ag

Calmes: Trump's judicial nominees are fact-challenged and unfit

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