Source – SCOTUS Blog
| Trump Chooses His Personal Lawyers for Federal Appeals Courts |
| Jacqueline Thomsen, Bloomberg Law |
| During his second term, President Donald Trump has “repeatedly turn[ed] to his personal legal teams to fill seats on the federal appeals courts,” according to Bloomberg Law. Earlier this year, he nominated “Missouri lawyer Justin Smith, who worked on an appeal of a judgment against Trump in a defamation case by the writer E. Jean Carroll,” to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, and Friday, “Trump tapped Sullivan & Cromwell partner Matthew Schwartz for a seat on the Second Circuit, after Schwartz worked on multiple New York civil and criminal cases for the president.” Bloomberg noted that “[i]t’s a new source of judges for Trump, who doesn’t appear to have appointed any of his private attorneys to the federal bench during his first term,” but also observed that “it’s not unusual for presidents to appoint people they know to be federal judges: Brett Kavanaugh worked as White House staff secretary before President George W. Bush nominated him to the DC Circuit.” |
