Trump Is Off To a Great Start On Judicial Nominees

Judges were one of the big wins of President Donald Trump’s first term. His initial batch of nominees this term suggests he’s not tired of winning yet.

Last week, Trump named several judges for the district court in Missouri and the municipal court in Washington, D.C. And earlier this month, he announced Whitney Hermandorfer as his nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

All are strong picks, but Hermandorfer has garnered the most attention — and for good reason.

She’s Trump’s only court of appeals nominee so far. This is significant because the courts of appeals are one level below the Supreme Court in more ways than one. They resolve upwards of 99% of federal litigation, while the High Court rules on around 60 cases each year.

Moreover, the court of appeals is a common stepping stone to higher office. Eight of the nine sitting Supreme Court justices previously served on the court of appeals,

But perhaps most importantly, Hermandorfer’s nomination suggests that Trump will apply the same criteria we saw for his first-term judicial nominees: originalists who will uphold the rule of law and are not afraid of the opprobrium heaped on those who take on the Left’s sacred cows.

That’s what has the Left running scared.

As Hermandorfer’s current boss, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, said upon the announcement of her nomination, she is “an absolute rock star” and “perhaps the single most credentialed lawyer in America, having clerked for a full third of the justices on the Supreme Court.” He wasn’t exaggerating.

She graduated from Princeton University magna cum laude and was first in her class at the George Washington University Law School, where she was editor-in-chief of the George Washington University Law Review. Most lawyers would consider having clerked at the Supreme Court the gold standard for a nominee, but Hermandorfer went even further.

After clerking for Judge Richard Leon of the D.C. district court, she served then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit before clerking on the Supreme Court for Justices Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett. That’s a trifecta of every type of federal clerkship possible, plus an extraordinary double Supreme Court clerkship. As Trump put it in his Truth Social announcement, Hermandorfer “has a long history of working for Judges and Justices who respect the RULE OF LAW.”

Hermandorfer has long been part of the conservative legal movement, and in recent years has played an integral role in the successful Tennessee Attorney General’s office, where she has served under Skrmetti as director of the Strategic Litigation Unit. State attorneys general were the tip of the spear defending constitutional limits under the Biden administration, and Hermandorfer played an important role by leading two successful multi-state coalitions challenging Biden’s Title IX regulations mandating that boys be allowed to play girls’ sports and use girls’ facilities in schools and arguing against his attempts to rewrite Pregnant Workers Fairness Act regulations to circumvent pro-life state laws.

Of course, Hermandorfer’s stellar resume won’t guarantee her a smooth confirmation. Leftist groups, including the Alliance for Justice, have already come out attacking her for embracing Trump’s “discriminatory authoritarian agenda” and said Trump nominees do “not deserve the benefit of the doubt…when we already have 234 examples of his judges causing harm on the bench.”

Indeed, the 234 Article III judges Trump appointed during his first term are among the highest four-year totals in history. And the quality of those picks was even more impressive than the quantity, course-correcting the Supreme Court and much of the rest of the federal judiciary after years of rootless activism.

Because Trump begins this term with far fewer judicial vacancies than he faced eight years ago, his second-term totals are unlikely to match those of his first, but he is nonetheless on track to close out eight years with more judicial appointments than any other president. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) recently noted that judicial nominations will be a “big priority” for the Judiciary Committee, which suggests the senators also recognize how key judges are, and time is of the essence to confirm as many judges as possible while Republicans control the Senate.

Hermandorfer’s hearing before the committee will be scheduled for June 4th, setting her up for potential confirmation before the August recess.

Liberal dark money groups like the Alliance for Justice know very well that a president’s judicial appointments have an impact that lasts much longer than his term. While presidents come and go, federal judges serve for life. President Trump has the opportunity to bolster what could be his most enduring legacy with his second-term judicial appointments. He’s off to a great start.

Carrie Severino is the president of JCN and co-author of the bestselling book Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Court.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.