Several encouraging picks

One of President Trump’s greatest achievements in his first term was stocking our federal courts with many outstanding jurists who blended impressive credentials with a demonstrated devotion to the rule of law. President Trump has since been busy in his first six months in office nominating another slate of uniformly impressive judges, several of whom are particularly encouraging for social conservatives.

First out of the gate was Whitney Hermandorfer, then a top-gun lawyer for the attorney general of Tennessee and now a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which covers much of the industrial Midwest. Her resume is chock full of shining achievements: Princeton followed by George Washington University for law school, where she was editor-in-chief of the law review. She then clerked for then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh during his tenure on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit before clerking for both Justices Samuel Alito and Amy Barrett on the U.S. Supreme Court. After a stint in private practice, she chose to step away from the BigLaw paycheck to work for the Tennessee attorney general, where she was a key part of the team defending Tennessee’s law limiting transgender surgeries on children before the U.S. Supreme Court.

President Trump has subsequently nominated five others to the U.S. Courts of Appeals: Department of Justice official Emil Bove (confirmed to the Third Circuit); Jennifer Mascott, a law professor at the Catholic University of America (nominated for the Third Circuit); Joshua Dunlap, an appellate lawyer with a track record of advocacy for religious liberty (nominated to the First Circuit); Eric Tung, a law firm partner and former federal prosecutor with two U.S. Supreme Court clerkships (nominated to the Ninth Circuit); and Rebecca Taibleson, a federal prosecutor who clerked for Justice Scalia (nominated to the Seventh Circuit). 

The president has also nominated 20 lawyers to sit on the U.S. District Courts, which recent days have shown can wield great power to frustrate the president’s lawful agenda. Several stand out as champions for socially conservative causes in their prior practice. Josh Divine, now confirmed to the federal bench in Missouri, was a Blackstone Fellow for the Alliance Defending Freedom one summer while at Yale Law School. While a top lawyer for the State of Missouri, he was part of the legal team challenging the Food & Drug Administration’s regulations on mifepristone (the abortion pill); defending Missouri’s abortion regulations; defending Missouri’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood; and defending Missouri’s law against transgender surgeries on children.

Divine’s chief deputy and partner in many of those cases, Maria Lanahan, was nominated to join him on the federal bench. She is a University of Chicago law graduate who clerked for Judge Raymond Gruender on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. She’s also an active volunteer for the Chesterton Academy of Saint Louis, a classical Catholic school.

Edmund LaCour Jr. has a similar track record defending pro-life regulations and a state law against transgender surgeries as the solicitor general of Alabama; he’s now a nominee to its Northern District Court.

In Florida, the president has nominated Jordan Pratt to a lifetime seat on the U.S. District Court. Currently a state judge picked by Gov. Ron DeSantis, Jordan formerly worked as a full-time religious liberty lawyer at the First Liberty Institute. Also a Blackstone fellow, Jordan led on cases fighting social media censorship and vaccine mandates for people of faith.

President Trump has underlined the importance of appointing principled, courageous jurists to the federal bench. As he said in his first term, “the stakes for our country are incredibly high. Rulings that the Supreme Court will issue in the coming years will decide the survival of our Second Amendment, our religious liberty, our public safety, and so much more.” That is true of all courts, up and down the system, as we see federal district court judges issue sweeping and controversial rulings on the most important policy issues facing our nation.

The president’s nominees from his first six months in office show he is committed to selecting attorneys who combine the intellect and integrity necessary for the role with a solid track record of courage in defense of our constitutional order.