When President Donald Trump announced his first slate of judicial nominees, they came with all the bigotry and bias you’d expect: hating abortion, hating gender-affirming care, hating racial justice, loving literacy tests for voting—you know, the usual. But when the five nominees provided written answers to questions from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, we learned that those hateful views are no longer enough: Now, Trump nominees also have to be election deniers. Yes, it appears that buying into Trump’s conspiracies about the 2020 election is now a requirement for a lifetime appointment to the federal courts. Terrific.
Every nominee refused to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Instead, they sidestepped the question by providing an answer similar to Attorney General Pam Bondi during her confirmation hearing. When asked if Biden won the election, her answer was, “President Biden is the president of the United States. There was a peaceful transition of power.”
That is very much not a yes, but instead a careful sidestep—and a painfully obvious hedge. Bondi knew she couldn’t go full election denier during her confirmation hearing, but she also knew that any statement that Biden won the election would likely cost her that attorney general gig.
And these judicial nominees have grasped that the most important part of their confirmation process is showing their fealty to Trump and the Big Lie.
Related | Trump’s attorney general pick won’t admit Biden won 2020 election
Here’s Zachary Bluestone, tapped for a federal district court seat in Missouri. When asked if Trump lost the 2020 election, Bluestone’s answer was, “Under Article II and the Twelfth Amendment, Congress is responsible for counting electoral votes after a presidential election. Congress certified President Biden as the victor of the 2020 election, and he served as the 46th President of the United States.”
And here’s Joshua Divine, also tapped for a Missouri seat. His answer? “President Biden was certified as the victor and served as the 46th President of the United States.”
Nominee Cristian Stevens went with, “As I recall, there were various legal challenges to the results of the 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden was certified as the winner of the 2020 presidential election and served four years as president.”
You get the picture.
There’s no question that Trump’s first-term nominees were bad in some spectacular ways, eager to help the wannabe autocrat eradicate rights and regulations. But when it came to the wide variety of election conspiracy cases Trump filed in his failed bid to overturn the election, even his own appointees did not sign on, ruling against him. Trump isn’t going to make that mistake again. He doesn’t just need conservative ideologues in the federal courts: He needs judges who won’t stop him no matter what he does, and agreeing to the farce that Biden didn’t win in 2020 is a pretty big tell that these nominees see their primary job as ensuring Trump gets his way, no matter what the law says.
During his first term, Trump looked to shady moneyman Leonard Leo and the extremist Federalist Society for nominees, but Trump and Leo are having a very public falling out. Trump is mad at Leo because some appointees, presumably suggested by Leo and vetted by the Federalist Society, had the temerity to rule against Trump. Trump has also cut the American Bar Association out of the appointment process, so there will be no neutral assessment of the qualifications of these judges.
None of these nominees will act as a check or balance on Trump. It’s pretty obvious they would not have gotten the nod if they believed the judiciary had any authority over the president. So, instead of normal judicial candidates, we’re going to get a motley mix of true believers crawling over one another to prove that they are the most committed to the Big Lie and the most eager to let Trump do whatever he wants.
That is going to be terrific for Trump, but terrible for democracy.