A new New York Times analysis found that federal judges appointed by President Donald Trump voted “overwhelmingly” in his favor when compared with judges appointed by other presidents, a trend that has legal experts sounding the alarm over what they say is Trump’s attempt to impose a permanent shift in presidential power and constitutional norms.
“Trump has filled [the appellate courts] with these superstar judges,” said Mitu Gulati, a law professor at the University of Virginia, speaking with the Times. “They’re not buffoons. They’re very effective. And they are going to be there for a long time.”
The Times analyzed every judicial ruling that pertained to Trump’s agenda during his second term – from Jan. 20 to Dec. 31 – and found that across 900 cases, 51% of rulings were decided in his favor in appeals courts. Judges that were appointed by Trump, however, ruled in favor of Trump 92% of the time, whereas other Republican appointees ruled in Trump’s favor 68% of the time, and Democratic appointees, just 27%.
While legal experts such as O.H. Skinner, a former Arizona solicitor general, said judicial outcomes “shouldn’t be 50-50,” the dramatic rate at which Trump appointees ruled in his favor raised questions about whether those decisions reflected the merits of the cases, many of which Skinner himself described as “comically ham-fisted or far-fetched.”
“Judges should not be measured as if ruling equally for plaintiffs and [the Justice Department] is a neutral ideal,” Skinner said, speaking with the Times.
“That ignores how much the legal merits and procedure drive proper case outcomes. And some of these lawsuits are comically ham-fisted or far-fetched. It’s quite telling that about a quarter of the votes of Biden appointees have sided with President Trump.”
Nevertheless, the seemingly partisan nature in which Trump appointees have conducted themselves, Gulati warned, could impact the United States’ legal system for decades.
“The Supreme Court’s docket is so tiny, and there’s so little attention paid to the appellate courts,” Gulati told the Times.
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