On behalf of our hundreds of thousands of supporters and activists nationwide, People For the American Way opposes the nomination of Daniel Traynor to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
As explained in more detail in the second half of this letter, we do not support confirming any judicial nominees of Donald Trump. He is dangerously unqualified to be making lifetime appointments to the one branch of government that is in a position to provide checks and balances to his lawless actions.
But first, this letter focuses on one of those nominees: Daniel Traynor.
Daniel Traynor
In order for the judiciary to function properly, judges should put aside any partisan political ideologies they may have. Every litigant must be confident that the judge is deciding their case based on a neutral evaluation of the record and the law, not a predetermined mindset governed by the judge’s personal ideology or politics.
Unfortunately, Traynor has allowed his political preconceptions and biases to guide his judicial opinions. He showed this in the way he decided Catholic Benefits Association v. Burrows,[i] a case in which he issued a preliminary injunction to regulations implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and guidance involving anti-transgender discrimination prohibited under Title VII.
Congress passed the PWFA in 2022. The statute requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for working people to address temporary limitations due to “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.” The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission clarified that abortion care and in vitro fertilization are related to pregnancy, so they are covered by the PWFA. The EEOC also issued guidance with examples of anti-transgender discrimination, which is unlawful under Title VII.
The Catholic Benefits Association – a nationwide organization of Catholic organizations and for-profit businesses owned by Catholics – challenged the EEOC’s regulations and guidance in court. CBA claimed a legal right under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to fire anyone requesting an accommodation for abortion care or in vitro fertilization, and to misgender trans employees in various ways.
Judge Traynor rejected the federal government’s contention that the EEOC’s regulations and guidance advanced a compelling interest. He did not even meaningfully address the harms that Congress and the EEOC set out to mitigate. Nor did he allow a case-by-case analysis should the EEOC ever enforce any of the regulations against the CBA or its members. Instead, he issued an injunction essentially giving the CBA and its members a blanket exemption from the anti-discrimination provisions they oppose.
Lamenting that we live in a “post-Christian age,” Traynor accused the Biden administration of conducting a “war on religion” and described the regulations as “clearly anti-religion.” He even went to far as to warn that:
Unchecked government power creates martyrs like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, imprisoned and executed for expressing opposition to euthanasia and the persecution of Jews; Miguel Pro, arrested and eventually executed for violation of Mexico's anti-Catholic Calles Law; and Thomas More, famous for being executed by the British king for the crime of not saying anything.[ii]
It is hard to read this as anything other than a hyperbolic political polemic against the Biden administration. In contrast, Traynor has been sympathetic to actual abuse of government power against individuals when carried out by the Trump administration.
Oscar Saucedo Carera is one such individual. He is a citizen of Mexico and resident of North Dakota who has lived in the United States since 2015. Federal agents arrested him in early 2026 and held him without bond as an “alien seeking admission” and therefore ineligible for release under bond under a 1996 federal immigration statute.
Of course, someone already in the United States who has lived here for many years is not “seeking admission.” It was only during the current administration’s violent assault against longtime immigrants – an assault that has families in our communities living in terror, afraid to set foot outside out of fear of being violently assaulted by masked agents and taken to detention facilities far from their homes and families by a government that has deported people to foreign concentration camps before they can get legal help – that the federal government adopted this redefinition of the 1996 law. The majority of judges around the country have rejected this effort to rewrite the law. But not Traynor. As Donald Trump requested, Traynor reinterpreted the immigration statute to give Trump the power to imprison longtime immigrants without bond.[iii]
Another case that raises concerns involves the 2016 Noth Dakota pipeline protests. In that case, decided in 2025, he found that the Obama administration had “abandoned the rule of law” and “emboldened the protestors,” and he ordered the federal government to pay millions of dollars in damages to North Dakota.
But in so doing, he made clear that he saw this as part of a much larger political picture. He used the opinion’s introduction to frame the issue:
Throughout recent history violent and tumultuous protests, riots, and so-called "movements" have plagued the United States, especially during the delicate time leading up to presidential election years: the "Long, Hot Summer of 1967" and the 1968 riots in response to the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; the Rodney King Riots of 1992; the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011; the 2015 Baltimore Protests; the George Floyd Riots and Portland Riots in 2020. All of these led up to contested presidential elections.[iv]
Traynor provides no justification for his implication that these events were efforts to use violence to affect upcoming “contested presidential elections”. (Of course, all presidential elections since George Washington’s have been “contested.”) But it is telling that Traynor chose to frame the case with a list that included only progressive causes.
It is even more telling that he excluded the most obvious and notorious example of political violence in our time, and one that was indisputably connected to a presidential election: the January 6 insurrection. Ominously, the Trump administration has pardoned the insurrectionists. It has removed data from the Justice Department website showing the threat posed by right-wing political violence.[v] And it has laid the groundwork for a widespread suppression of progressive organizations on the false grounds that they are engaged in political violence.[vi]
It is no surprise that Trump would feel confident in elevating Traynor to the Eighth Circuit. Senators should not vote to confirm him.
The Senate Should Not Confirm Judicial Nominees of a President Who Defies the Courts and Expects Absolute Loyalty From His Nominees
The federal courts are essential to providing the checks and balances needed to prevent tyranny. At present, they are the only branch of the federal government carrying out this essential function.
President Trump does not share that vision of the courts. He expects the judges he nominates to show him personal loyalty and always rule in his favor.
This has been clear for a long time. However, on May 10, Trump himself made it impossible to pretend otherwise. In a Truth Social post, he wrote this about Supreme Court justices:
[I]t’s really OK for them to be loyal to the person that appointed them to 'almost' the highest position in the land, that is, a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.[vii]
In March, he condemned the Court for striking down his tariffs even though he supported them:
The Court knew where I stood, how badly I wanted this Victory for our Country, and instead decided to, potentially, give away Trillions of Dollars to Countries and Companies who have been taking advantage of the United States for decades.[viii]
He then went on to condemn the independence of justices who have ruled against him:
They openly disrespect the Presidents who nominate them to the highest position in the Land, a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and go out of their way, with bad and wrongful rulings and intentions, to prove how "honest," "independent," and "legitimate" they are.[ix]
No president who is looking for unfettered loyalty from his judicial nominations can be allowed to put more judges on the bench at any level.
This development does not come out of the blue. Soon after returning to office, Trump began defying court orders and threatening judges who rule against him. In a May 30, 2025, letter to the Judiciary Committee, we explained that a president who does this should not be allowed to name anyone to the one branch of the federal government that is checking his power.[x]
Events since then have only strengthened our case. For instance, an extensively-documented whistleblower complaint revealed that senior Justice Department official Emil Bove suggested in March that the administration violate court orders.[xi] President Trump subsequently nominated Bove to a seat on the Third Circuit, to which he was confirmed. The administration now routinely defies the courts. In fact, a July study revealed that the Trump administration had defied one in three judges who had ruled against him.[xii]
Nationwide concern over the Trump administration’s deceptive filings and court defiance continues to grow. The administration even risks losing the “presumption of regularity,” in which judges presume that the federal government and its lawyers are telling the truth and acting in good faith.[xiii] Indeed, an October 2025 report revealed dozens of instances of judges expressing distrust in the government’s representations, as well as growing concerns within the federal bench about noncompliance with judicial orders.[xiv]
And in November 2025, a sitting federal judge nominated by President Reagan resigned from his lifetime position in order to speak frankly and in depth about Trump’s threat to the rule of law. Mark L. Wolf wrote:
I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom. President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment. This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench. The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence, for me, is now intolerable.[xv]
Later that same month, President Trump even called for the execution of members of Congress for stating the undisputed legal fact that members of the military may not follow unlawful orders.[xvi]
In January 2026 alone, the Trump administration violated nearly 100 court orders relating to ICE’s reign of terror in the Minneapolis area that led to brutal killings of American citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good. These orders were issued to protect the people of Minnesota from unlawful abuses of power by ICE. On January 28, Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz released a list of those violated orders.[xvii] He wrote:
[It] identifies 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases. The extent of ICE’s noncompliance is almost certainly substantially understated. This list is confined to orders issued since January 1, 2026, and the list was hurriedly compiled by extraordinarily busy judges. Undoubtedly, mistakes were made, and orders that should have appeared on this list were omitted.
This list should give pause to anyone—no matter his or her political beliefs—who cares about the rule of law.[xviii]
At least 35 times between August 2025 and February 2026, federal district court or magistrate judges in California, Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, West Virginia and Puerto Rico ordered the administration to explain why it should not be punished for violating court orders.[xix]
This is a unique moment of crisis for our nation. Fortunately, the framers of our Constitution anticipated a moment such as this. Through the confirmation process, they gave the Senate the power and the responsibility to prevent a president such as this from sabotaging the independence of our courts.
The Senate should not confirm any judicial nominee of President Trump’s at any level.
[i] Catholic Benefits Association v. Burrows, 732 F. Supp. 3d 1014 (2024) (extended to a permanent injunction in Catholic Benefits Association v. Lucas, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75074, 2025 WL 1144768).
[ii] Catholic Benefits Association at 1029, n. 9.
[iii] Carera v. Bondi, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37909, 2026 WL 508084.
[iv] North Dakota v. United States, 785 F. Supp. 3d 473, 484 (2025).
[v] “DOJ quietly removes study showing right wing attacks ‘outpace’ those by left,” The Hill, Sept. 17, 2025, https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5507682-doj-removes-far-right-extremism-study.
[vi] “Trump’s Orders Targeting Anti-Fascism Aim to Criminalize Opposition,” The Brennan Center, Oct. 9, 2025, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/trumps-orders-targeting-antifascism-aim-criminalize-opposition.
[vii] https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116552659719497289.
[viii] https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116236850873003597.
[ix] Id.
[x] https://www.peoplefor.org/sites/default/files/downloads/2025-06/Hermandorfer_and_4_MO_noms-opposition_letter.pdf.
[xi] “Justice Dept. Leader Suggested Violating Court Orders, Whistle-Blower Says,” New York Times, June 24, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/us/politics/justice-department-emil-bove-trump-deportations-reuveni.html.
[xii] “Trump officials accused of defying 1 in 3 judges who ruled against him,” Washington Post, July 21, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/21/trump-court-orders-defy-noncompliance-marshals-judges.
[xiii] See, e.g., David French, “How a Trump Judge Exposed the Trump Con,” New York Times, Oct. 12, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/opinion/trump-judge-immergut-portland-national-guard.html; “Judges Openly Doubt Government as Justice Dept. Misleads and Dodges Orders,” New York Times, Aug. 4, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/us/politics/trump-justice-department-judges-courts.html.
[xiv] “"The ‘Presumption of Regularity’ in Trump Administration Litigation,” Just Security, updated Oct. 15, 2025, https://www.justsecurity.org/120547/presumption-regularity-trump-administration-litigation.
[xv] “Why I Am Resigning,” Judge Mark L. Wolf, The Atlantic, Nov, 9, 2025, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/11/federal-judge-resignation-trump/684845.
[xvi] “Trump says Democrats’ message to military is ‘seditious behavior’ punishable by death,” Associated Press, Nov. 20, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/trump-military-traitors-sedition-illegal-orders-c5fc3c5bd2fbc6b1204550e4203c24b2.
[xvii] “ICE is not a law unto itself,’ Minnesota judge says after immigrant released following contempt threat,” CNBC, Jan. 28, 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/28/ice-immigrant-minnesota-contempt-released.html.
[xviii] Juan v. Noem, Case No. 26-CV-0107 (PJS/DLM), order of Jan. 28, 2026, https:// storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.230171/gov.uscourts.mnd.230171.10.0_2.pdf .
[xix] “Judges Grow Angry Over Trump Administration Violating Their Orders,” New York Times, Feb. 23, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/us/politics/judges-contempt-immigration-trump.html.