Trump Chooses His Personal Lawyers for Federal Appeals Courts

President Donald Trump is repeatedly turning to his personal legal teams to fill seats on the federal appeals courts.

Judge Emil Bove last year joined the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit after he worked on Trump’s fights against New York state and federal charges. This year, the president has nominated to the Eighth Circuit Missouri lawyer Justin Smith, who worked on an appeal of a judgment against Trump in a defamation case by the writer E. Jean Carroll.

And on Friday, Trump tapped Sullivan & Cromwell partner Matthew Schwartz for a seat on the Second Circuit, after Schwartz worked on multiple New York civil and criminal cases for the president.

It’s a new source of judges for Trump, who doesn’t appear to have appointed any of his private attorneys to the federal bench during his first term. He’s since distanced himself from his prior sources for judges, last year panning the Federalist Society and its former leader Leonard Leo after a panel on the US Court of International Trade—including a Trump appointee—ruled against his administration’s tariffs.

Trump is “pretty famously displeased” with how some of his appointees from his first administration have ruled in some cases, said Michael Fragoso, a former chief counsel for then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) who played a key role in prior judicial appointments.

“I think he probably thinks that lawyers who were willing to stand with him in his most recent legal troubles are more reliable to be committed to his judicial agenda,” Fragoso added.

Trump has gone after judges who have ruled against his administration’s policies. Most of those judges are Democratic appointees, but Trump’s seen a handful of rulings against his agenda from judges he placed on the bench during his first term.

Robert Luther III, who worked on judicial nominations during the first Trump White House, pushed back against the idea that the defense lawyer selections represent a rebuke of Trump’s first round of judicial appointments. Luther said that he knows Bove and Smith, and would’ve backed them for judgeships if they had come up during the first Trump term.

“All of President Trump’s nominees are eminently qualified to serve in the positions they have been nominated for,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman.

Democratic senators strongly opposed Bove’s nomination, and some liberal groups are also coming out against the selection of Smith and Schwartz.

“Trump clearly cares about protecting himself over the rule of law or the Constitution, so he picks those loyal to his cause who will enable his authoritarian behavior,” said Christine Chen Zinner, federal research and advocacy director at the left-leaning group Alliance for Justice. “We cannot allow these MAGA extremists to assume lifetime positions on the federal bench and extend Trump’s undemocratic agenda for generations beyond his administration.”

Personal Ties

Most of Trump’s second term judicial appointments haven’t served as his personal attorneys. He’s appointed six circuit court judges and more than two dozen district court judges since returning to the White House last year, and more nominees are pending before the Senate.

During his first administration, Trump nominated Justice Department lawyer Chad Readler—who argued in defense of the administration’s attempts to add a question on citizenship to the 2020 census—as well as White House lawyer Gregory Katsas and Trump administration official Neomi Rao, to seats on federal appeals courts.

Luther, a law professor at George Mason University, said Trump has now had more exposure to lawyers with experience in constitutional law than he did ahead of his first term.

He noted that Bove worked on cases brought by then-Special Counsel Jack Smith, which were dropped after Trump’s 2024 election victory. In one of those cases, US District Judge Aileen Cannon agreed with Trump’s defense team that the special counsel was unlawfully appointed.

Justin Smith’s law firm also represented Trump in his bid to get the special counsel’s charges of election interference tossed out of court. The US Supreme Court said in a 2024 ruling ahead of Trump’s reelection that presidents do have some immunity from criminal charges over official acts.

“Unquestionably they got great results for Trump, but they probably got great results for him because they’re great lawyers,” said Luther.

He added that it’s not unusual for presidents to appoint people they know to be federal judges: Brett Kavanaugh worked as White House staff secretary before President George W. Bush nominated him to the DC Circuit.

Fragoso also said that Trump appears to be more personally invested in judicial selection than he was during his first White House stint. While Bove didn’t disclose to the Senate any contacts with Trump ahead of his judicial nomination, Smith said the president had called him to tell him he’d be nominated to the circuit court. Bove also told senators that he had no conversations about “loyalty” to Trump during the judicial selection process.

If Trump is playing more of a central role in that process, “it makes sense that lawyers that he knows personally are the ones that are winding up getting the nod,” Fragoso said.

Even as Trump and his allies have spoken out against the Federalist Society, establishment conservative credentials like membership in the group still persist among more recent Trump nominees.

Fragoso said Bove, Smith, and Schwartz each have the kinds of resumes that prior judicial candidates have had. Smith worked for Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), both in the Senate and at the Missouri attorney general’s office. Bove clerked for two federal judges before spending nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor, and Schwartz twice clerked for Justice Samuel Alito.

“At the end of the day, the networks that Leonard spent the last 20 years putting together and building really do contain almost all of the high quality candidates,” Fragoso said. “So Trump’s really not going to have too much of a choice but to draw from it.”