Trump’s First Judicial Nominees Have Federalist Society Ties (1)

Donald Trump’s first five judicial nominees of his second term all reported membership in the Federalist Society, as the president condemned the attorney networking organization and its former chairman Leonard Leo for giving him “bad advice” on judicial nominations during his first term.

All five nominees have been members since either law school or the beginning of their legal careers, according to their Senate Judiciary Questionnaires posted Tuesday.

The picks include four nominees to Missouri’s St. Louis-based federal trial court and Whitney Hermandorfer, tapped for a Tennessee-seat on the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, whom Trump met with personally before nominating her, according to Hermandorfer’s SJQ.

All five are scheduled to appear at their confirmation Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Trump recently turned his back on Leo, the adviser he relied on to fill judicial vacancies in his first term, calling the ex-chairman of the group a “sleazebag” after a Trump-appointed judge ruled against his tariff policy.

Trump has expressed disappointment in some of his first term appointments and is more generally critical of the judicial branch and judges who’ve ruled against the administration.

Even with some Trump appointees ruling against the president in his second term, the majority of those judges presiding over challenges to the president’s executive authority have sided with the administration, according to a Bloomberg Law litigation tracker.

Early Start

Missouri’s Republican senators jumped started their search for candidates soon after Trump’s 2024 win.

The trial court nominees said in their SJQs that staff for Sens. Eric Schmitt or Josh Hawley reached out to them about the vacancies in November or December, within weeks of the election.

Three also said Trump called them personally on May 6 to tell them they were being nominated. Trump’s personal interactions with candidates, including meeting with Hermandorfer before her nomination, signal a more heightened involvement by the president in the nominations process.

In addition to Hermandorfer, who is Trump’s first appellate nominee of his second term, the Missouri district court nominees scheduled to appear Wednesday are Missouri Solicitor General Josh Divine, state appellate judge Cristian Stevens; Zachary Bluestone, appellate chief of the US attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Missouri; and Maria Lanahan, the state’s prinicipal deputy solicitor general.

Hermandorfer Praise

A letter to the committee from Williams & Connolly expressed “enthusiastic support” and praised Hermandorfer’s qualifications, which include clerking for Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett and working at the firm on appellate and administrative-law litigation. She most recently directed the strategic litigation unit for the Tennessee attorney general’s office.

The letter in support of Hermandorfer was signed by dozens of partners, including Supreme Court advocate Lisa Blatt and veteran DC powerhouse attorney Bob Barnett.

Blatt, a former Ruth Bader Ginsburg clerk, said Hermandorfer is a “once-in-a-lifetime combination of legal talent, kindness, and positivity.”