In his first term, Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate filled 234 lifetime judicial vacancies. After four years, he had named a third of the entire Supreme Court and nearly a third of all active circuit court judges. The damage they have done has been immense.
Think that was bad? Just wait. His second-term nominees will be much worse, and even more dangerous.
For exhibit A, look no further than Emil Bove, his nominee for the Third Circuit. Bove was Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney before being appointed acting deputy attorney general in January, and then principal associate deputy attorney general. At the Justice Department, Bove has engaged in dangerous abuses of power on Trump’s behalf, leading the New York Times to describe him as “the main enforcer of Mr. Trump’s demands for retribution.”
For instance, Bove ordered federal prosecutors in New York to drop corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams “without prejudice” so Adams could advance Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda in New York City – with a constant threat that charges could be reimposed if he was not sufficiently obedient. This blatantly corrupt order led several federal prosecutors to resign rather than carry it out. Bove also oversaw a purge of federal employees who had been involved in investigating and prosecuting the January 6 insurrectionists.
The idea of making someone like Emil Bove a lifetime federal judge is so over the top that even one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Trump’s first-term judicial nominees has condemned it: Conservative activist Ed Whelan has written that the nomination of people like Bove “can only be explained by their thuggish fealty to Trump.”
But it comes as no surprise that submissive obedience to Trump is the main thing he is looking for in a judge. According to press reports, Trump has complained in private that the three justices he appointed have not supported him 100 percent. He has also turned against the Federalist Society and Leonard Leo, because some of the far-right judges they recommended to him during his first term have not always ruled in his favor. The Federalist Society’s agenda of turning the clock back on a century of progress is not extreme enough for a man who wants to be king. He wants his word to be final, no matter what the law or Constitution says.
Indeed, Trump often makes his fury known when a judge rules against him. When federal district court judge James Boasberg temporarily blocked the administration from kidnapping immigrants and sending them to a foreign concentration camp without due process, Trump posted, “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” The next day, Attorney General Pam Bondi accused Boasberg of “meddling in our government” and “trying to protect terrorists who invaded our country over American citizens.” When the Supreme Court ruled against Trump in a related case and reminded him that immigrants have a right to due process, he reposted a supporter’s post suggesting he release terrorists near the homes of Supreme Court justices.
Trump’s demand that people he appoints or who work for him prioritize his desires over the Constitution, democracy, or the rule of law is exactly what we’ve seen with his high-level executive branch appointments. In Trump’s first term, there were a few patriots in his administration who refused to collaborate with his illegal schemes. They put their loyalty to America before their personal loyalty to Donald Trump. As a result, our democracy survived his first term.
Trump deeply resents that and is making sure it won’t happen again. He wants collaborators, not patriots.
- For attorney general, he picked Pam Bondi, who had been one of his lawyers at his 2020 impeachment trial and who later that year collaborated with his effort to undo the results of the presidential election. In 2022, Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchison told the bipartisan House January 6 committee that Bondi had reached out to her before she testified in an apparent effort to make sure she put loyalty to Trump over her obligation to testify truthfully under oath.
- For FBI director, he picked Kash Patel, who had openly said he would use the power of government to go after journalists who accurately reported that Trump lost the 2020 election, and who had even published an enemies list of people who had not kowtowed to Trump.
- For solicitor general, he picked his personal lawyer John Sauer, who had argued before the Supreme Court that Trump would be immune from prosecution even if he had his political opponents murdered.
As bad as many of the first-term Trump officials were, they were nothing like this.
So have no doubt: Trump plans to remake the courts in his image. If the Senate does not stand up to him and say no to his nominees, he will fill the courts with collaborators willing to let him take away our freedom and rule like a king. We cannot let that happen.