Trump’s Legal Battles: Judges He Appointed Turn Against Him

In a cascade of remarkable dissent, Trump’s legal crusade faces its most striking rejections: From the very judges he personally chose.

Throughout his tumultuous tenure, President Trump celebrated the appointment of an unprecedented number of judges as a conservative triumph. Before the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Trump asserted the urgency of her appointment, suggesting her presence could safeguard the election from alleged theft. Following Election Day, Trump’s surrogate, Harmeet Dhillon, left no room for doubt regarding the campaign’s expectations from Barrett and other appointees.

“We anticipate action from the United States Supreme Court, where the President has nominated three justices,” Dhillon stated. “Hopefully, Amy Coney Barrett will rise to the occasion and take charge.”

Trump’s demand for allegiance has been a recurring theme in his presidency, extending even to ostensibly non-political roles like judicial appointments. However, the response to his electoral challenges has hardly reflected this loyalty. Time and again, judges with ties to Trump have aligned with others in undermining his assertions.

In the past few days alone, all three of Trump’s Supreme Court nominations declined to support the campaign’s extensive endeavor to overturn the election outcomes. Additionally, another judge appointed by Trump delivered a scathing rebuke in Wisconsin.

Collectively, at least eight judges appointed by Trump either ruled against or refused to bolster the pro-Trump campaign’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and irregularities. Furthermore, more than 10 percent of the individuals from Trump’s Supreme Court shortlists failed to align with his expectations.

The pinnacle of these events was Friday’s Supreme Court decision, wherein the court dismissed a dubious filing from 18 Republican state attorneys general and the Trump campaign, seeking to overturn results in four states. While two justices suggested acceptance of the case, none of them were Trump appointees Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch, or Brett M. Kavanaugh. Notably, the two justices, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas, also refused to grant the requested relief, constituting a significant rebuff in itself.

Although the absence of explicit dissenting votes was conspicuous, the silence from Trump’s appointees resonated profoundly.

Nevertheless, some Trump appointees did not remain silent. Among them is Brett H. Ludwig, nominated by Trump to a U.S. District Court in Wisconsin in 2017. Ludwig recently characterized the Trump campaign’s request for the GOP-appointed Wisconsin legislature to select new presidential electors as “bizarre.” Subsequently, he ruled against the “extraordinary” lawsuit.

“A sitting president, unsuccessful in his reelection bid, seeks federal court intervention to annul the popular vote based on contested election administration matters, which he could have addressed before the election,” Ludwig stated.

He continued, “This court afforded the plaintiff an opportunity to present his case, and he has failed on merit. In his response, the plaintiff ‘urges adherence to the Rule of Law.’ It has been upheld.”

Ludwig’s firm rejection echoed that of Stephanos Bibas, a Trump federal appeals court nominee, who ruled against the Trump campaign in late November in Pennsylvania.

“Allegations of unfairness are grave,” Bibas wrote on behalf of a three-judge panel. “However, branding an election as unfair does not render it so. Allegations necessitate specific claims and evidence. We have neither here.”

Simultaneously, another federal appeals court dismissed an extraordinary case brought by pro-Trump lawyer L. Lin Wood. Of the three judges on the panel, two were finalists for Trump’s Supreme Court vacancies — William Pryor and Barbara Lagoa — and Lagoa was initially chosen for the appeals court by Trump.

Pryor, in the ruling, argued that Wood lacked standing to file the case, and even if he did, the case was moot because Georgia had already certified its election results.

“Wood’s contentions reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of mootness,” Pryor articulated.

Trump’s endeavors also encountered resistance in two less prominent cases.

One instance involved Judge Andrew Brasher, nominated by Trump twice — first as a district court judge in 2018 and then as a circuit court judge just a year ago. Brasher dismissed a request from Wood and former Trump team lawyer Sidney Powell on Dec. 4, denoting the litigation as “eleventh-hour” and observing that it sought “comprehensive relief.” Brasher declined Wood’s and Powell’s petition to have the court review a district court’s ruling.

In mid-November, Trump-appointed District Court Judge Steven Grimberg delivered an even sterner response to Wood’s petition. Grimberg maintained that Wood lacked standing and that the evidence fell far short of what would warrant a federal judge intervening in a state’s election results.

“This action undermines the public interest on numerous fronts, particularly considering the circumstances surrounding this election,” Grimberg remarked. “To halt certification at such a late stage would sow confusion and potentially disenfranchise individuals without factual or legal basis.”

Trump and his campaign repeatedly attributed their dismal court record to “activist” judges. Following their Supreme Court defeat, they insinuated that the court had evaded the issue on a technicality.

However, as reported by The Washington Post’s Rosalind S. Helderman and Elise Viebeck, this narrative overlooks not only the number of Trump-appointed judges who ruled against him but also the broader spectrum of judges across various levels of the judiciary who declined to support the Trump team’s contentions or rule in their favor. In total, at least 86 judges dismissed at least one post-election lawsuit, with 38 of them appointed by Republicans.

Moreover, before the election, Trump-appointed judges played a pivotal role in rejecting proposals to relax voting regulations. According to an analysis by The Washington Post’s Ann E. Marimow and Matt Kiefer, Trump appointees accounted for three-quarters of decisions in that regard.

This reality underscores the fertile ground for a judge sympathetic to Trump’s unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud to emerge, even though such a ruling would never suffice to alter the outcome of the 2020 election. The absence of such a judgment truly encapsulates the veracity of Trump’s assertions.