The liberal advocacy group Demand Justice is taking the unusual step of paying for television ads to rip into three senators aligned with Democrats who have each voted to confirm at least one of President Trump’s judicial nominees this year.
The ads, part of an initial $1 million campaign which will begin to air on television and appear online on Wednesday, make the case that none of Mr. Trump’s judicial appointments deserve bipartisan support because they are putting loyalty to the president above the Constitution.
The evidence that Demand Justice cites for that claim is that none of Mr. Trump’s appointments to lifetime court seats have said in written answers to the Senate that Mr. Trump lost the 2020 election or that the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, amounted to an insurrection.
The three senators being targeted with the initial ad campaign are John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Angus King of Maine, who is an independent but caucuses with Democrats. Notably, none of three are up for re-election in 2026. All are moderates and among the group who voted to end the government shutdown last month.
Josh Orton, the president of Demand Justice, said in an interview that the appointees’ unwillingness to acknowledge Mr. Trump’s defeat or to characterize the Capitol attack as an insurrection compromised their ability to be fair arbiters of the law.
Mr. Fetterman has voted to confirm one judge, Ms. Hassan has voted for three and Mr. King has voted for four, the group said.
Mr. Trump’s nominees have answered questions in writing from Democratic senators, including, “Did President Trump lose the 2020 election?” Mr. Trump has refused to acknowledge his loss. And many of his nominees avoided any mention of his defeat when they answered that question, saying that former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had been “certified” and had “served as the 46th president.”
The ad campaign is an effort to raise awareness of those evasions, Mr. Orton said, and to urge Democrats not to confirm any of Mr. Trump’s picks or lend them any “bipartisan credibility.”
“There is no moral, political or historical reason for any Senate Democrat to be voting to confirm these nominees to lifetime seats on the federal bench when they’ve taken, in essence, a political loyalty pledge to Trump,” Mr. Orton said.
In addition to the ads, MoveOn, the progressive advocacy group, plans to mobilize its members starting on Wednesday to demand that Democrats vote no on all of Mr. Trump’s judges.
Demand Justice has been trying to raise awareness of the written answers these appointments have provided, including running a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal last month highlighting what law firms the nominees had worked at and what law schools they attended.
Most of Mr. Trump’s judicial appointments have been confirmed in close to party-line votes, though one gathered more support. Harold D. Mooty III, Mr. Trump’s choice to be the U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama, received 66 votes on the floor, including the support of 14 Democrats or Democratic-aligned senators.
In his written questions, Mr. Mooty was asked, “Do you denounce the January 6 insurrection?” He answered that he denounced “any and all acts of violence against law enforcement and government officials; however, the characterization of the events of January 6 is subject to ongoing political debate.”
Such an answer was not acceptable, Mr. Orton said.
“The goal here is to change behavior,” Mr. Orton added. “If there are Senate Democrats who moving forward agree not to confirm any nominee who propagates Trump’s biggest lies, we will call off the campaign and we will celebrate.”
But Mr. Orton said that if more Trump judicial appointments were confirmed with Democratic support, his group would “escalate” with more ads targeting more senators.
Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting.
Shane Goldmacher is a Times national political correspondent.
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