Trump’s Stealth Coup in Federal Courts
The right is establishing a stranglehold over the federal judiciary that will last for decades
Retention is a problem that has plagued Donald Trump for his entire presidency. His cabinet picks have been notoriously short-lived: He has the highest turnover rate of any president in the past four decades. (The garrulous Anthony Scaramucci didn’t even last a full week as communications director.) Trump’s inability to make his picks stick has been a prime source of schadenfreude for liberals, who are quick to point to the White House’s never-ending game of musical chairs as evidence of its ineptitude. Yet the president may still get the last laugh. One group of his appointees will be around for decades: federal judges.
To date, Trump has made 187 successful appointments to the federal judiciary, accounting for one-fifth of all circuit and district court judges who serve life terms. During the holiday lull in December, while all eyes were on the impeachment hearings, the Senate confirmed 23 of Trump’s judicial picks. Shortly before Christmas, it approved 12 appointments in a single day. On the higher circuit courts, Trump appointees now make up one in four judges, and their median age is 47.
Trump appears to be using two primary criteria for his judicial selections: age…
