WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has picked his first judicial nominee of his second time period: Whitney Hermandorfer, a Tennessee legal professional who has clerked for 3 of the Supreme Court docket’s conservative justices — together with two of Trump’s nominees — and who progressive teams warn has an “extremist” file.
In a social media publish near midnight on Thursday, Trump stated he plans to appoint Hermandorfer to the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Hermandorfer, 38, presently works for the Tennessee legal professional common as director of the workplace’s strategic litigation unit.
“Whitney has been serving the Nice Folks of Tennessee, within the Legal professional Basic’s Workplace, the place she has strongly litigated in Court docket to guard Residents from Federal Authorities Overreach,” the president stated on his social media web site, Reality Social.
“Whitney is a Fighter who will encourage confidence in our Authorized System,” he stated. “Thanks Whitney!”
Hermandorfer beforehand clerked for Supreme Court docket Justices Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett, one in every of Trump’s nominees. She additionally clerked for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one other of Trump’s nominees, when he was a choose on the D.C. Circuit Court docket of Appeals.
This was actually a plus for the president.
“She has an extended historical past of working for Judges and Justices who respect the RULE OF LAW, and shield our Structure, together with Justice Samuel Alito and two high-quality Supreme Court docket Justices I appointed in my First Time period,” he stated.
A social media publish is just not a proper nomination; the White Home has to formally submit Hermandorfer’s nomination to the Senate for it to start shifting. However the truth that Trump is even speaking about naming somebody to a court docket seat, right here on Might 2, is notable contemplating how sluggish Trump’s White Home has been in shifting judicial nominations.
By this level in his time period, President Joe Biden had nominated 12 folks to lifetime federal judgeships. President Barack Obama had nominated three in his first time period and 5 in his second time period. In his first time period, Trump had nominated two folks to federal judgeships by this level, one in every of whom was then-Supreme Court docket Justice nominee Neil Gorsuch.
“It’s late for the primary nominee, particularly given how severely Trump has been attacking federal judges,” stated Carl Tobias, a legislation professor on the College of Richmond in Virginia and an professional on federal judicial nominations.
As for Hermandorfer’s {qualifications} to be a choose, Tobias known as her “an astute decide” with strong conservative credentials, very a lot within the mould of Trump’s first-term judicial nominees who had data of opposing abortion rights, LGBTQ rights and voting rights. He famous that she has defended the state’s “strict abortion legislation and efforts to maintain trans folks out of ladies’s sports activities” in her work with the Tennessee legal professional common’s workplace.
Hermandorfer can be younger, that means if she is confirmed by the Senate, she may maintain this lifetime federal judgeship for many years.
Tom Williams by way of Getty Pictures
Progressive judicial advocacy teams seized on the information of Hermandorfer’s coming nomination, warning that it’s proof that Trump will prioritize judicial nominees keen to place private loyalty over the legislation.
Maggie Jo Buchanan, interim government director of Demand Justice, identified that in late March, Hermandorfer served as counsel of record for Tennessee in a short submitted to the Supreme Court docket advocating the identical place that Trump is utilizing in his efforts to finish birthright citizenship.
“The administration’s try to finish birthright citizenship has been roundly criticized as unconstitutional by main students on the left and proper, however Hermandorfer seems to be keen to behave in lockstep with the political needs of this administration,” Buchanan stated in a press release.
Alliance For Justice described her file as “disturbing” and “extremist.”
In her work for the Tennessee legal professional common, Hermandorfer led litigation from a number of states difficult Biden’s Title IX steering that included protections for transgender college students and their inclusion at school actions. Her efforts to roll back these protections is what Trump was referring to in his publish when he known as her “a staunch defender of Ladies’ and Girls’s Sports activities.”
“That is maybe why Trump himself included a well-known and apparent anti-trans canine whistle in his announcement, expressing his expectation that she is going to uphold the discrimination his administration has already pushed by way of varied government orders,” Alliance for Justice stated in a press release.
Keith Thirion, the group’s interim co-president, stated within the assertion that he hopes senators are ready to cease “conservative crusaders like Whitney Hermandorfer who shall be loyal to [Trump] and his discriminatory authoritarian agenda on the expense of all of us.”
Folks For the American Manner President Svante Myrick took issues a step additional, saying the Senate shouldn’t verify Hermandorfer or any of Trump’s judicial nominees given his common assaults on the courts and his requires judges to be eliminated who rule towards him.
“With a Republican-controlled Congress presently doing nothing to guard our democracy, it’s as much as the courts to protect the vital checks and balances and hold us free,” Myrick stated in a press release. “Till Trump absolutely reverses course and acknowledges that he’s not a king, we can’t permit him to place any lifetime judges on our federal courts.”
The White Home didn’t reply to a request for touch upon when Trump plans to formally ship Hermandorfer’s nomination to the Senate.
