In the United States, we rely on fair and independent judges to protect our rights and freedom. They are central to the system of checks and balances we all learned about in school.
But there’s a disturbing new trend: President Donald Trump’s nominees to be federal judges are going out of their way to demonstrate unquestioning loyalty to him. They’re refusing to acknowledge basic facts that contradict his dangerous and self-serving fictions.
This is happening in the U.S. Senate, where the Judiciary Committee holds hearings on every judicial nominee. From the beginning of Trump’s second term, nominees have been asked a simple question: Who won the 2020 election?
The answer is equally simple: Joe Biden.
But to acknowledge that fact would be to contradict the web of falsehoods constructed by Trump to justify the unjustifiable: efforts to undo the 2020 election, mass pardons for those who violently attacked the Capitol, and the transformation of the federal government into an instrument of Trump’s revenge.
Answering the question honestly would signal integrity and independence.But Trump’s nominees contort themselves to avoid answering the question.
They deflect by saying that Biden was “certified” as the winner but won’t say he actually won. Last December, Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked three nominees who won the popular vote. We know that Biden did. But Trump’s nominees won’t say it. The most they would say was that Biden was “declared the winner of the election.”
Now nominees won’t even acknowledge the events of January 6, 2021. At the same December hearing, nominees were asked to acknowledge that the Capitol was attacked that day. Not one of them would call it an attack.
One nominee showed his unwillingness to part from Trump’s propaganda by describing the events of that day this way: “Individuals entered the Capitol, and some of them were charged, and there were cases that arose as a result.”
But we all know what happened that day. We watched it happen on live television. We have seen video footage of the violence.
Some of Trump’s nominees have even signaled that they are more loyal to his illegal ambitions than the Constitution itself. Ever since the 22nd Amendment was ratified in the 1950s, the Constitution has banned presidents from serving more than two terms. It is as clear as you can get. But Trump has repeatedly talked about running for another term in 2028.
His nominees refuse to state the obvious: he can’t. When asked if Trump can serve a third term under the Constitution, most of his nominees bob and weave and avoid saying no. They quote the text of the amendment. But they refuse to say that it applies to the man who nominated them.
Remember, these are people who want lifetime positions where they will, among other things, determine the facts about and the legality of actions taken by Trump and his administration.
Some people may think the administration’s lawlessness won’t affect them. But the brutal slayings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis shows that no one is safe if government officials can break the law without fearing accountability.
The impact goes beyond violence in the headlines. Judges decide whether things like Trump’s efforts to gut lifesaving medical research, violate the privacy of our Social Security information, and rig election rules are legal.
If nominees are so desperate to avoid offending Donald Trump now, how can we expect them to fairly consider arguments that he has violated the law when they are judges?
Our senators should be protecting us from these enablers, not rewarding them with lifetime positions as judges.
