Trump wins more judges' confirmations at this point than Obama, GW Bush combined
President Donald Trump
A little more than six months into his presidency, President Donald Trump has won confirmation of a Supreme Court justice, three federal appeals judges and one district judge, outpacing his two most recent predecessors combined, the Washington Times reports.
In the first six months of President Barack Obama’s presidency, no federal judges were confirmed. By Aug. 1, 2001, President George W. Bush confirmed one federal appeals judge and two district judges.
Trump has announced 28 judicial nominations so far. He is moving far more quickly than the Obama administration at this point, but not quite as fast as Bush, according to the Times article. There are roughly 137 federal court vacancies.
The latest nominee to win confirmation is Kevin Christopher Newsom, to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Newsom is a former Alabama solicitor general and former clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Newsom was a partner at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings.
Other federal appeals court nominees confirmed are John Bush and Amul Thapar, both to the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Thapar, who was a federal district judge in Kentucky, was previously on Trump’s list of 21 potential Supreme Court nominees.
Bush was a partner and co-chair of the litigation department at Bingham Greenebaum Doll in Louisville, Kentucky. His nomination caused controversy because he had blogged under a pseudonym at Elephants in the Bluegrass. He was approved on a party-line vote, NPR reported.
In his blog posts, Bush called for repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, opposed public financing of political campaigns, and wrote that the two greatest tragedies in the United States were slavery and abortion.
