Trump Changes How Judicial Nominees Get Publicly Revealed

The Trump administration has narrowed the window between when judicial nominees get publicly announced and when they appear at their confirmation hearings, cutting short the time outside groups have to vet these lifetime appointments.

As little as two days has elapsed between announcement and Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for some of President Donald Trump’s nominees this year, compared to the typical 28 days that elapsed in prior administrations.

It’s just one way Trump has altered the judicial nominations process amid the president’s aggressive push to reshape the federal judiciary, including revealing nominees on the social media platform he founded, Truth Social.

“It’s a slow, and in some cases not that slow, erosion of any norm, any rule,” Helaine Greenfeld, who’s overseen nominations for the Justice Department and Senate Judiciary Democrats, said of the second Trump administration’s actions.

The current trend is a marked departure to Trump’s first year in office and Joe Biden’s.

Trump’s district picks between May and October of 2017 often waited a little over a month or sometimes several months for their confirmation hearings following a White House announcement of their intended nomination or that their nomination was sent to the Senate. Biden’s picks waited 28 days or longer in the same time period in 2021.

Asked about the change, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said, “President Trump is selecting highly qualified nominees, with great respect for our Constitution, who are being confirmed expeditiously and will serve on the bench for decades. That’s something all Americans can celebrate.”

28 Days

The Senate Judiciary Committee continues to get more advanced notice, even as public disclosure is happening later in the process since panel rules require at least 28 days elapse between when it receives background information and a hearing can occur.

The Senate Judiciary Questionnaire filled out by nominees includes biographical, financial, career, and other personal details about the would-be judge and is central to the committee’s vetting process. The “28-day rule” is meant to give panel members adequate time to vet nominees before their hearings.

“The Senate Judiciary Committee does not control when the White House formally announces judicial nominees or when questionnaires are returned,” a spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement. “The time between the White House’s formal announcement of a judicial nominee and that nominee’s confirmation hearing is unrelated to the Committee’s 28-day rule.”

Recent Democratic administrations including Biden’s provided the committee with a nominee’s disclosure paperwork on the same day the White House announced the president’s plans publicly, according to Nick Xenakis, a former top Democratic aide to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Transparency Question

Trump’s Louisiana district nominees in October had the shortest turnaround between public disclosure and their confirmation hearing, which was two days. The announcement came Oct. 20, and the hearing was Oct. 22. The liberal judicial advocacy group Alliance for Justice disclosed the nominees on its website several weeks earlier.

William Crain, a Louisiana state Supreme Court justice, and Alexander Van Hook, who briefly served as an interim US attorney in the state this year, proved largely uncontroversial. Democrats spent most their time questioning Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s criminal division, who was also on the agenda.

Trump’s Montana district court nominee, William Mercer, had his hearing 20 days after his nomination was announced. Mercer, a former US attorney and DOJ lawyer under George W. Bush, faced questions on his record as a state legislator.

Robert Luther, a former White House lawyer who worked on Trump’s first term judicial nominations, said he doubts there’s any gamesmanship behind the administration’s decision to publicize these picks closer to their hearing dates.

The nominees’ mainstream legal backgrounds didn’t warrant a longer pre-hearing window, Luther said. A longer process would’ve counterproductive for an administration and Senate Republican caucus that has prioritized speed in confirming Trump’s judicial nominees. The two weeks before a committee vote on the nomination and weeks leading up to a Senate floor vote provide ample time to research the nominees, Luther added.

“They’re putting people out when they clear background, and they’re trying to get as many people on hearing slates as they can so that that we can keep a steady stream of nominees going to the Senate,” Luther said.

But critics say shorter pre-hearing windows provides less transparency.

“The public is left in the dark about lifetime nominees to our federal courts,” said Christine Chen Zinner, federal research and advocacy director at Alliance for Justice.

John P. Collins, a George Washington University law professor who researches and writes about judicial nominations, pointed to the press coverage Emil Bove’s appeals court nomination received and the whistleblower disclosure about Bove’s work for the Justice Department made public in the 28 days after Trump’s announcement and before his hearing.

The current trend line “seems a lot more like a conscious decision to keep this as a secret for as long as possible,” Collins said.

Truth Social

The administration’s decision to reveal nominees through the president’s social media platform, sometimes late at night, rather than through White House press releases, has also strayed from precedent.

Greenfeld said it was “degrading” to have nominations to lifetime appointments announced on social media.

But Luther said that the president is “innovative” for using the technology to announce his judicial nominees directly to constituents, even at odd hours.

“The government doesn’t stop working when we go to sleep. And, you know, I don’t think that’s a bad thing to remind people of,” he said.