Personality vs. Policy? We’ll Take Trump’s 200 Judges
There is a lot of talk about personalities these days. I prefer to talk about policy. The irony here is that despite all the attention given the former, the latter makes a lasting difference for our country.
There is a lot of talk about personalities these days. I prefer to talk about policy. The irony here is that despite all the attention given the former, the latter makes a lasting difference for our country.
Perhaps no area reflects this more than judicial nominations. Wednesday, the Senate voted 52-48 to confirm Cory Wilson to sit on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, marking the 200th judicial appointment for the Trump administration. We talk about this a bit, but we can’t talk about it enough. In just over his first three years in office, Trump has appointed 53 circuit court judges, 143 trial court judges, two international trade court judges and two Supreme Court justices — nearly matching President Obama’s numbers in some of these categories despite the fact that he had two full terms to do it. Just imagine what President Trump could do if he gets another term.
FRC’s Vice President for Policy & Government Affairs Travis Weber joined me on Washington Watch Wednesday to talk about it. As Travis told me, when “we look at President Trump’s record, President Trump [and] Leader McConnell [are] doing a great job with these nominees being confirmed. These are originalists. These are textualists. These are nominees who will decide the facts, decide the case before them, not make law.”
Indeed, the approach of these judges has yielded incredible results, and they have largely upheld religious liberty and pro-life laws. Judge Justin Walker, who was recently confirmed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled to protect religious liberty and allow church services to continue when suppressed by an unconstitutional coronavirus-related restriction in Kentucky. Elsewhere, judges appointed by President Trump to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals called for review by the full court when 3 judges struck down a state Down syndrome abortion ban.
The president has “flipped” the 2nd, 3rd, and 11th Circuits from majority Democrat-appointed to majority Republican-appointed circuit courts. He narrowed the Democrats’ extreme majority on the liberal 9th Circuit from 11 to 3. Now, one out of every 5 federal judges is a Trump nominee.
Yes, the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Bostock case last week was troublesome, but it is not a reason to walk away from this process. President Trump’s nominees, including his two Supreme Court justices, have still ruled in accordance with the constitution in a number of important cases — and we are expecting more opinions on life and religious liberty any day now. Without our engagement, we won’t see more good pro-life and pro-religious freedom results. Do we think a list of Supreme Court nominees from Joe Biden would be even close to President Trump’s?
As Travis told me, the opposition “[doesn’t] like that [Senate Majority] Leader [Mitch] McConnell [and] President Trump [have] been [so] successful in confirming these nominees. They can’t stand it. That’s why they want to win the election, to be able to block these originalists and textualists from continuing to be confirmed.”
Indeed, we don’t know what openings we’ll have on the Supreme Court in a second Trump term. The president recently tweeted that he will be releasing a new list of Supreme Court justice nominees by September 1st. FRC will continue to defend the ability to ensure strong, solid, true originalist judges make it onto the Supreme Court and lower courts.
Originally published here.
History in the Breaking
“Destroying history will not make you feel good about the present… Learning from it might.” — Victor David Hanson
When the Taliban burned down churches or destroyed artifacts, we called it barbaric. But when angry mobs tear down our statues and vandalize monuments, it’s “justice?” There are things this country has witnessed over the last few weeks that will take a lifetime to understand. And even longer to get over. The image of great Americans heroes being toppled and cracked into pieces on the streets is just the latest chapter in this story of chaos the radicals are writing. But if the outrage from the White House is any indication, this administration is done letting cities feed the monster.
More than 400 U.S. marshals are on their way to national monuments across the country, the new guardians of centuries of history. “Enough is enough,” Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fumed on the House floor. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, “Genius statesmen who helped begin this grand experiment that has brought freedom to hundreds of millions and saved the world a few times for good measure. And yet a crazy fringe is treating their monuments like vanity statues of tinhorn tyrants. Our founding fathers are being roped to the ground like they were Saddam Hussein… Ulysses S. Grant, the general who crushed the Confederacy. The president who used federal force to fight the Klan. They, too, have been placed on the historical hit list for this new Red Guard that nobody elected” — while a Seattle tribute to Vladimir Lenin, a Soviet mass murder, stands quite untouched.
This is no longer about racial justice or even the Confederacy. This is about erasing American history. And Christians, of all people, cannot afford to sit by and watch it happen. “The mob will keep marching,” Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) warned, through all our cultural institutions until every American whom the woke crowd deems unjust is cancelled.“ Don’t think for a moment that appeasement will come when mayors and governors step aside and allow the destruction of every statue or historical landmark at the demand of the mobs. If anything, placating them will only whet their appetite for more.
Are there legitimate concerns here? Absolutely. Slavery was a tremendous blight on the American experiment of freedom. The peaceful protestors recognize that. But there are far more who are exploiting this racial tension to pursue something else: the destruction of our country. "The United States of America can and should have nuanced conversations about our complex past," Senator McConnell agreed. "We can and should have discussions about our future. We can and should have peaceful protests. But this lawlessness serves none of that. It is just an alliance of convenience between angry criminals who think it’s fun to wreak havoc… and a slice of elite society that profits off saying our country is evil and deserves the abuse.”
Real, honest history includes the good, the bad, and the ugly, which isn’t just the story of America — but all of humanity. Mankind is a testament to redemption, not perfection. The Bible bears that out. It doesn’t sugar-coat the history of God’s people. In fact, throughout Scripture, there’s almost an emphasis on man’s failings. Look at King David, an adulterer and murderer. Or Jesus’s own lineage of prostitutes and sinners. Consider the apostle Paul, one of the most revered followers of Christ, who got his start by killing believers. Or Peter, who denied Jesus three times and then abandoned him to a violent death on the cross.
Scripture doesn’t tell these stories to celebrate them — it tells them to remind us: we are fallen. And only God in his perfect plan of redemption can save us. “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect,” Paul said in Philippians 3:12, “but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”
Very seldom do statues like these topple without governments falling with them. It’s time to acknowledge the failures of our past, not pretend like they didn’t exist. That’s the only way move forward, to find promise and hope in the future. America isn’t perfect. But Senator McConnell is right. Our “imperfect union is still the greatest nation in world history.” And we have to protect it, even as we work to perfect it.
Originally published here.
Trial by Fired: The Berman Hearing
There are more than 113,000 people working for the Justice Department. Does firing one really matter? It does if you’re a liberal Democrat trying to disgrace Donald Trump. And the media circus over U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman is exactly that. A circus — with plenty of politically-motivated clowns.
Now, to be clear, the position of a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) is nothing to sneeze at. As Andrew McCarthy at NRO points out, it’s probably the “premier prosecutor’s job in the country.” He should know. He spent two decades in the SDNY office. But, as Andy points out, Berman’s hold on the post has “always been tenuous. He was not a full-fledged appointee. All along, he was in an interim status.” So it probably wasn’t the wisest career move, if he wanted to keep his seat, to refuse to follow the administration’s directive on religious liberty.
See, despite the press’s spin that this was all a hatchet job to keep Berman from investigating the president’s friends, there was a lot more to the story that the mainstream news isn’t reporting. Wednesday, on “Washington Watch,” Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), who had to endure the sham hearing on all the politically motivated ills of the DOJ, talked about the real reason for Berman’s ouster. And it wasn’t because of some deep conspiracy to insulate the president. It was — at least in part — because he refused to get on board with the administration’s defense of religious freedom.
Attorney General William Barr and Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband drafted a letter to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, criticizing him for cracking down on religious gatherings while at the same time encouraging the mob protests. Barr asked Berman to sign the letter. He refused. According to several people, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. If the head of the Justice Department can’t trust his attorneys to follow his directive, shouldn’t he have the right to fire them? Federal statute says yes. House Democrats say no.
As Mike pointed out, the president has the power to appoint and to remove U.S. attorneys. It’s also assumed that his attorney general has the same authority, acting on the president’s behalf. Either way, it was “perfectly appropriate in this case” to remove Berman, especially, he said, if it was “insubordination.” For the president and AG Barr, this was no fringe issue. In this administration, religious freedom a top priority — and if the administration can’t trust Berman to act on it, then Barr is absolutely justified in finding someone who will.
That’s the way it works in the real world — and that’s the way it should work here. To suggest that this was some political conspiracy or DOJ interference is ridiculous. And yet, the Democrats only have one play: turning every decision this administration makes into an all-out assault on President Trump.
“The whole hearing,” Mike said frankly, “was a farce.” And ironically, he pointed out, the Left is “accusing Attorney General Barr of exactly what the Obama administration’s [AG] Eric Holder did. General Barr is not politicizing the DOJ. He’s trying to clean up the messes that the other side made. And yet they’re in the majority in the House. They have the majority in this committee, and Chairman [Jerry] Nadler and company are doing what they do best — and that is trying to obscure the facts and go after Trump, because it’s the only page they have in that playbook.”
A lot of people don’t realize how many career attorneys have worked at the DOJ for years. Plenty are Left-of-center. Some, but not all, have a political agenda. Since 2016, the administration has been trying to clean up that mess, which always manages to create its share of conflict. And of course, the media is all too eager to take the side of anyone being pushed out. As usual, they want to ascribe a dirty motive to everything Trump does.
“The outrage of the day is that they paint these DOJ witnesses as patriots who are just doing their civic duty by coming forward and blowing the whistle.” And yet, Mike shook his head, “one of the guys they brought in… has a record of having requested to leave the DOJ to serve on the impeachment inquest against Trump. I mean, there is not even an appearance of [neutrality]… it’s just very clear what’s going on here. And the American people can see it. And I think a growing number of them are very, very frustrated by all of this.”
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
