GOP/JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/NOMINATIONS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump has nominated 50 candidates to lifetime appointments to the federal bench — including a man who asserted transgender children were evidence of ‘Satan’s plan,’ one deemed unqualified by the American Bar Association and a handful of prolific bloggers.
And the GOP has unanimously stuck by Trump’s judges. Senate Republicans have cleared judicial nominees at a comparatively rapid clip this year — even as the conservative base has complained they’re not moving fast enough — and are planning to pick up the pace even more in the coming months.
Among the more eyebrow-raising judges is Charles Goodwin, who has been nominated to the federal bench in Oklahoma. He is the first judicial nominee since 2006 to earn a ‘not qualified’ label from the American Bar Association, which has screened judicial candidates since the 1950s.
But both of his Republican home-state senators, James Lankford and Jim Inhofe, say they’re still confident Goodwin is adequately qualified to serve on the bench and dismissed the ABA’s findings…
The defense underscores Republicans’ commitment to remaking the federal judiciary for generations to come, even as the Senate GOP and Trump have butted heads on other issues and struggled to carry out their broader legislative agenda…
No Republican senator has voted against Trump’s judicial nominees so far this year, either in committee or in confirmation votes on the floor.”
-Seung Min Kim, “Trump’s judge picks: ‘Not qualified,’ prolific bloggers,” Politico, Oct. 17, 2017 05:05am