Hi, and welcome back to Trump Watch! I hope you all survived the blizzard in D.C. this week. But it looks like warm weather this weekend, just in time for me to spend happy hour at my favorite bar before a 40% rent spike forces its closure. Gentrification claims another victim. Tell me why I'm wrong at [email protected], and follow me at @jacq_thomsen on Twitter.

From left, Lawrence VanDyke, Halil Ozerden and Leonard Leo.

Trump's Year in Judges: What Worked, What Didn't and What's Next

The president is impeached and tensions are high with Iran. But even the threat of war won't stop the Senate from confirming President Donald Trump's judicial nominees: Among the Senate's first votes after returning from the holiday break were for, you guessed it, judicial nominees.

Trump got a record-breaking 187 judges confirmed to the federal bench during his first three years in office, with more than 100 of those approved this past year alone. It's a number that conservatives are bragging about, and liberals are warning of (although not as loudly as some outside groups would like them to.)

Will 2020 be more of the same? And what lessons have Senate Republicans learned from the past year of judicial confirmations?

What worked

Ignoring the ABA

Toward the end of 2019, conservatives began piling on the American Bar Association for slapping a handful of Trump's judicial nominees with a "not qualified" rating. The tipping point was such a rating for Lawrence VanDyke, which called him "lacking in knowledge of the day-to-day practice" and questioned if he could be fair to members of the LGBTQ community.

VanDyke cried, the Senate confirmed him and now he has a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. And Republicans began questioning whether the ABA should be allowed to have so much access to judicial nominees.

It doesn't look like the ABA is leaving anytime soon. But it also doesn't seem like the Senate GOP cares much about what it has to say: They've confirmed seven of the nine judges with the "not qualified" rating since 2017, three of them this past year alone.

Going fast

Mitch McConnell hit the gas last year on judicial nominees, pushing through judges so fast that it's helped Trump set records.

According to a tracker from the conservative Article III Project, only Jimmy Carter has appointed more Article III judges by this point of his presidency. And Trump now holds the record for the most appellate judges confirmed by this time in office, with a quarter of sitting circuit judges now appointed by him.

Democrats don't have much in their tool box to slow down that pace, nor do they seem willing to employ many tactics to delay the confirmations. And with McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham urging older judges to step down to make way for even more Trump judges, don't expect the GOP to hit pause either.

What didn't work

Going with Mulvaney's man

Oh, to be Halil "Sul" Ozerden, Trump's pick for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. And when I say "to be," I really mean "run away from," which is exactly what senators from both parties did.

Ozerden's confirmation had been in the air since a testy hearing over the summer, during which Republicans questioned whether he would be a strong enough advocate for "religious liberty" to sit on the panel. Throw in Ozerden's close relationship with acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who found himself at the center of the Ukraine allegations that got Trump impeached, and the nomination became basically radioactive.

Ozerden's nomination has now lapsed and the odds of him getting another shot aren't looking great (a White House spokesman said he doesn't have an update after I asked if Ozerden will be renominated). Sorry Ozerden, having the president's (acting) chief of staff in your wedding doesn't guarantee an appeals court seat! Keep going at it at the Southern District of Mississippi.

What's ahead

Outside influence

As long as Trump's in the White House and Mitch McConnell holds onto the Senate, there's no sign the judicial nominees will stop coming. But what might change is how the nominees are used ahead of the pivotal 2020 election.

Left-leaning liberal groups I've spoken with are frustrated by Democratic presidential candidates's lack of focus on judicial nominees, and say they're working to come up with their own ways to elevate the topic among voters. And it looks like the 2020 Dems will get their own presidential forum on the courts days before the crucial New Hampshire primary.

But conservatives, who seized on judges to convince wary Republicans to back Trump in 2016, are stepping up their game.

Influential conservative judicial groups like the Federalist Society are still in the picture, but the organization can't exactly take overt political actions as it's not technically an advocacy group (catch up on the squabbling over that here and here).

But Leonard Leo's new outfit, CRC Advisors, will be. And they're planning to hit the ground running, with a minimum of $10 million being spent on a campaign amplifying Trump's judges ahead of the presidential election.

Can Democrats keep up? Or will conservatives' tight grip on the courts extend past 2020?

A Look Ahead

Mitch McConnell wants to get started with the Senate's impeachment trial, growing frustrated with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's withholding of the articles of impeachment passed.

Pelosi said at a press conference Thursday morning that she's ready to send over the articles "soon"—but she wants to see the "full arena" before naming House managers and kicking off the trial. What we've got here is an old-fashioned intra-Congress dispute.

But don't give up yet—signs point to a trial getting started next week.

What We're Reading

>> Trump Judicial Nominee Faces Questions Over Recently Renewed Federalist Society Membership: "Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, asked [Cory] Wilson about his membership with the Federalist Society, noting he recently rejoined the group after letting his involvement lapse for more than a decade. 'Did anyone suggest to you that you should rejoin the Federalist Society in order to increase your chances of becoming a member of the judiciary?' Blumenthal asked. 'Not that I recall,' Wilson replied, saying he initially joined the organization when he was at Yale Law, and recalled it being a 'great forum for discussion' with 'great speakers.'….Following Blumenthal's questions, Republican Sen. Mike Lee offered up a full defense of the Federalist Society. 'This is, in no way, shape or form, something that should be the subject of legitimate inquiry,' he said." [National Law Journal]

>> Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivers personal message to SF's new DA, Chesa Boudin: "Before Chesa Boudin was sworn in by Mayor London Breed as San Francisco's new district attorney on Wednesday evening, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered a special message. The surprise video from the justice was played on the large screen inside the Herbst Theater, prompting gasps from the audience of hundreds of eager supporters and city officials who gathered to observed the event." [San Francisco Chronicle]

>> Inside Antonin Scalia's FBI File: "Nearly four years after the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the FBI recently released its files on Scalia, offering a peek inside the confirmation process for his circuit court and Supreme Court nominations. The 483 pages of documents posted this month on the FBI's online vault also reveal communications about a possible ethics investigation in 1993 and a purported death threat in 2006 from someone who called Scalia an 'anti-Christ.'" [National Law Journal]

>> 2nd Circuit Refuses to Lift Injunction Preventing Implementation of 'Public Charge' Rule: "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Wednesday upheld a nationwide injunction blocking implementation of the Trump administration's "public charge" rule, which would make it easier for the federal government to deny legal status to immigrants who apply for public benefits based on their income. The panel's ruling was the first appellate court decision to prevent the Trump administration from enforcing the new rule nationwide, after the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Fourth and Ninth circuits both lifted similar lower court orders late last year." [New York Law Journal]

>> DOJ's Rod Rosenstein, Job Searching Since September, Lands at King & Spalding: "In his most recent role as the DOJ's No. 2, [Rod] Rosenstein was responsible for overseeing Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible efforts by President Trump to obstruct the probe. At his new firm, he will advise corporations, individuals and financial institutions on sensitive and reputational legal challenges, including many involving government agencies, legislative bodies and state attorneys general. He declined to comment on the president's impeachment process but addressed efforts to combat foreign interference in U.S. elections." [National Law Journal]

>> 'Indefensible': Hundreds of Lawyers Criticize McConnell Over Senate Impeachment Trial: "Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe is also among the signatories. In a phone interview Tuesday, he described McConnell's efforts as an attempt to turn the Senate trial into a 'political whitewash.' 'The reason the Framers gave the Senate the sole power to try impeachments, rather than conducting merely a poll of some political kind, is that they contempted that there would be evidence, there would be witnesses,' Tribe, who advised House Democrats during the impeachment proceedings, said….Tribe said he is in touch with Pelosi as well as other top House Democrats, and that Senate Democrats have also sought his guidance ahead of the impeachment trial." [National Law Journal]

>> N.Y. Bar Association Asks Congress to Investigate AG Barr for Bias: "The New York City Bar Association has asked Congress to investigate U.S. Attorney General William Barr, saying his recent actions and statements have positioned the Justice Department and its prosecutors as 'political partisans willing to use the levers of government to empower certain groups over others.' The request disclosed on Thursday appears to be the first time the New York bar or any comparable bar association has asked Congress to investigate a sitting attorney general." [Bloomberg]

Thanks for reading Trump Watch! We'll be back next week.