GOP Senator Blocks Trump Judge Picks to Get Tribe Recognized

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has kept President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees in Mississippi from advancing as he seeks to compel federal recognition for an indigenous group as a tribe in his state.

Tillis, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, continues to hold up the panel’s votes on four Mississippi federal trial court and US attorney nominees as leverage in his negotiations with Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) around including federal recognition of the Lumbee in the National Defense Authorization Act, a spokesperson for the senator confirmed. Wicker is chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The details of the negotiations between Tillis and Wicker were first reported by Mississippi Today and NOTUS.

Tillis told Bloomberg Law last week regarding his holds on the nominees that he “wouldn’t expect them” to be blocked “for very long.”

Wicker’s office didn’t immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment. The senator has repeatedly declined to answer questions about the holds and the nature of the negotiations with Tillis.

The four nominees, two for district judgeships and two for US attorney posts, have experienced weeks long delays on getting votes in committee.

The dispute has been an unusual GOP intra-party disruption to the president’s push to appoint his picks to lifetime judgeships and key prosecutor positions.

Republicans hold a 12-10 majority on the panel that’s advanced most of Trump’s picks with virtually no resistance from its GOP members.

The impacted nominees include James Maxwell and Robert Chamberlin, both Mississippi state supreme court justices who’ve been tapped for judgeships on the US District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi.

The chief prosecutor picks include James Kruger for the Southern District of Mississippi, and Scott Leary, for the Northern District.

Kruger was previously line attorney in the Southern District office and the executive director of the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security. Leary is an assistant US attorney in the Northern District office.

Tillis, who says he won’t run for reelection in 2026, has been an ardent supporter of the Lumbee’s recognition as a tribe by the US government—a push that’s been ongoing for more than a century.

A provision granting that recognition is in the House’s version of the defense bill but not the Senate’s. The two chambers must now work to reconcile differences in the two iterations for the final defense bill.