REPORT: Trump Will Rely on Appellate Court Appointments for Supreme Court
If you have been reading my reports on the election, you know I have applauded his campaign for clearly having learned its lessons from the 2020 campaign and from the mistakes made during Trump’s first term.
That now appears to have extended to Trump’s Supreme Court selections.
There are reports surfacing that when it comes time to pick Donald Trump’s justices if need be, he will rely on his previously appointed appellate court judges rather than picking someone fresh off the pile as he did during his first term.
Going with Experience
John Yoo, the Emanuel Heller professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley, seems to think that he has an inside track on how Trump will go about his business this time around.
He stated, "I think Trump, given his practices, would probably favor appointing people that he had appointed already to the circuit courts. And he has a lot to pick from because he picked a lot of young conservatives."
There is clearly going to be pressure on Justice Thomas to retire, as he is 76 and the oldest justice on the court.
With Democrats constantly coming at him, I believe he will likely retire sometime late in 2025.
I think Alito, who is just two years younger, will likely stick it out to see how the 2026 elections turn out, then retire if the GOP is going to lose the Senate.
I love the idea of Trump picking from judges who were already appointed because they will now have their record as well as their previous confirmation hearings to back them up.
As long as their record is solid, it will be hard for Democrats to mount the attacks against Trump’s picks like we saw with Barrett and Cavanaugh.
They will still be attacked, but the fact they had already made it through confirmations will make it difficult for anyone to take the attacks seriously if those judges already saw decent support the first time around.
So, like I said, I am very much liking the way things are going early in this transition period.
