For those readers unfamiliar with certain sports terminology, Winner’s Circle is where the winner of a horse race goes for the post-race celebration. My question is this:
What is waiting in The Federalist Society’s Winner’s Circle? A hungry dragon, perhaps?
This occurred to me while reading Slate’s coverage of one of President Trump’s latest nominees to the US Court Of Appeals for DC, Professor Justin Walker:
Welcome to the Trump Bench, a series where Slate analyzes a Trump judge’s recent work. At an unusually rapid clip, Donald Trump has so far successfully appointed two Supreme Court justices, 51 appeals court judges, and 138 district court judges during his presidency. Trump judges tend to be different than appointees by past presidents of both parties. Many are quite young, some are openly partisan, others are patently unqualified. The judges will likely be Trump’s most enduring impact on our nation, which is why we are choosing to spotlight their work.
The fifth installment is about Justin Walker, who has been nominated to the D.C. Circuit after just a few months as a federal district judge.
The Judge: Justin R. Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. The Senate confirmed Walker to the court on Oct. 25, 2019, despite the American Bar Association’s determination that he was “Not Qualified.” On April 3, Donald Trump nominated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Like many of Trump’s judicial nominees, Walker is a member of the Federalist Society.
At the end of this extended debacle called the Trump Administration, are we going to be saddled with a huge collection of ideological, young, unqualified, and incompetent judges which will reflect poorly on the Trump Administration?
Will the Trump Administration be judged one of the poorest selectors of judges by historians in fifty years?
And what will that mean for The Federalist Society? A loss of prestige? It’s certainly beginning to feel like it to me. They might even dissolve under the glare of bad – and enduring – publicity. There’s a difference between ideological leanings and simple incompetency, between nuanced readings and simple twisting and ignorance of the text.
Yeah, I’m glad I’m not in charge of The Federalist Society. The future suddenly isn’t so bright.
