Free Republic

Donald Trump’s most lasting legacy will be his appointments to the federal bench. In his tenure so far, the Senate has confirmed 193 judges, 51 of whom were circuit judges. All were nominated by President Trump. Indeed, President Trump and the Senate have confirmed federal appellate judges faster than any other president in U.S. history. For all judges, President Trump’s rate is the second fastest. The Senate returns to Washington next week, and on the agenda is another stellar judicial nominee, Judge Justin Walker. Walker is the quintessential Trump appointee. He’s young, he has impeccable legal credentials, and he has...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Wednesday joined a growing chorus of Democrats calling on Senate Republicans to pause their efforts to confirm federal judges when the Senate returns on May 4 amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying the GOP seems less interested in passing further measures to combat the virus than they are in putting more of President Trump's nominees on the federal bench. "The GDP just had its biggest drop since the Great Recession, the United States has surpassed one million confirmed positive cases of COVID-19, and we still don’t have adequate testing," Schumer said in a statement....

Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, said Wednesday GOP senators will work through New Years Eve to confirm all of President Trump’s pending judicial nominees before the end of the year if Democrats try to obstruct the confirmation votes. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, has made it a priority to remake the federal bench with a conservative bent, and has more than 40 judicial nominees awaiting floor votes. Before leaving Capitol Hill prior to the midterms, Republicans vowed to get them all confirmed once they returned during the lame duck session before the incoming Congress begins in January. “I...