Trump’s First Judicial Nominees Dodge 2020 Election Question

President Donald Trump’s first judicial nominees of his second term hedged their responses to whether Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

All five of the nominees to appellate and district courts wrote in response to the question submitted by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, that Congress had certified Biden as the winner and that he served as the 46th president. But they didn’t directly answer if he had won the election that Trump lost and continues to dispute.

“As I recall, there were various legal challenges to the results of the 2020 presidential election,” Eastern District of Missouri nominee Cristian Stevens wrote in his Questions for the Record response. “Joe Biden was certified as the winner of the 2020 presidential election and served four years as president.”

Whitney Hermandorfer, Trump’s first appellate nominee, went a step further and said that if Durbin was trying to “elicit an answer that could be taken as opining on the broader political or policy debate regarding the conduct of the 2020 presidential election” or “on statements by any political figure,” that she wasn’t able to comment on those issues under the federal judicial canons.

The responses come as Trump’s nominees to key Cabinet and judicial posts face questions on whether their loyalty to Trump will outweigh their duty to the law and the Constitution. For instance, Democrats, led by Durbin, question whether the Trump administration believes it’s required to follow all court decisions.

Other Trump officials have given similar responses to whether Biden won the election, including Attorney General Pam Bondi.

When asked by Durbin if Trump lost the 2020 election to Biden, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in her January confirmation hearing that Biden is the current president, that he was “duly sworn in,” and later said she wouldn’t forget the “many things” she saw “on the ground” in the swing state of Pennsylvania.

Bondi had aided Trump’s ill-fated efforts to overturn the 2020 election result.