General Discussion

Conservative attorney George Conway offered a theory as to why President Donald Trump hasn’t been nominating federal judges with the same urgency as in the first term.

Upon assuming office in 2017, Trump wasted no time in nominating judges. This time around, however, he waited more than three months to announce his first nominee to the federal bench, despite some 40 vacancies. During Trump’s first term, the conservative Federalist Society played a major role in recommending judges to Trump, who set a record for judicial appointments in one term. That figure was eventually surpassed by former President Joe Biden.

Conway joined Friday’s edition of All In on MSNBC, where he and host Chris Hayes discussed Trump’s recent broadside against Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo, who has played an instrumental role in helping put conservatives on the federal bench. After the U.S. Court of International Trade deal the president’s tariff agenda a temporary blow this week, Trump lashed out at Leo, calling him a “sleazebag” who “probably hates America.”.....

Conway responded:

It’s a bit of a theory, and the theory needs to be proven out. And I think reporters can do it. It’s like theoretical physics. And then you have to test the proposition. But I think part of the reason why we’re seeing so few judicial appointments thus far, as opposed to the flood that Leonard Leo and gave us eight years ago, is that most of the people who are in the conservative legal establishment who are qualified to become judges – whether or not you like them or not – they’re not qualified to Trump because they haven’t displayed their loyalty. And if they have that Federalist Society credential, I think I think Stephen Miller said today, we’re not picking people from the Federalist Society anymore.

So, they don’t really have a pipeline, and they really have a limited pool of people. Trump’s own personal criminal lawyers? Well, there are a lot of them because he committed a lot of crimes. But that’s still not enough to fill the federal judiciary.