Trump makes first judicial nomination of his second term for appeals court

President Trump has announced his first judicial nominee for his second term in office, looking to fill a seat on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In a Trump Social post late Thursday night, the president said he would nominate attorney Whitney Hermandorfer to the federal appeals court.

Ms. Hermandorfer has been working for the Attorney General of Tennessee, where she advocated for the state’s near-total ban on abortion and fought a Biden-era rule pertaining to school policies on transgender students.

In the post, Mr. Trump said she served as co-captain of the women’s basketball team at Princeton University and is a “defender of Girls’ and Women’s Sports.”

“She has a long history of working for Judges and Justice’s who respect the RULE OF LAW, and protect our Constitution, including Justice Samuel Alito and two fine Supreme Court Justice’s I appointed in my First Term,” Mr. Trump posted.

Ms. Hermandorfer clerked for Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and for Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh when he was on the D.C. Circuit.

Mike Davis, president of the Article III Project, which supports Mr. Trump’s judicial nominees, said Ms. Hermandorfer has experience litigating critical First Amendment issues.

“Just as we did in President Trump’s first term, when we helped secure the confirmation of over 230 principled judges, including three Supreme Court justices, the Article III Project will lead the charge to ensure every one of these new nominees is confirmed,” Mr. Davis said.

“We are prepared to fight tirelessly to uphold the rule of law. The stakes could not be higher, especially with Democrat activist judges sabotaging American voters, the presidency, our Constitution, and our country. We are all in for President Trump,” he said.

Keith Thirion, interim co-president of the progressive Alliance for Justice, said the nomination suggests the president is looking to install loyalists to the federal bench.

“In this sloppy, haphazard rollout, Trump has already made clear that he’s not the least bit interested in protecting democracy, equal rights, or the rule of law. His priority instead is to give lifetime terms to conservative crusaders like Whitney Hermandorfer who will be loyal to him and his discriminatory authoritarian agenda at the expense of all of us,” Mr. Thirion said.

He said, “As courts across the country are holding back his onslaught of illegal actions, we must reject every nominee who would weaken the few surviving guardrails of our democracy. Trump has proven he does not deserve the benefit of the doubt, nor do his judicial nominees, when we already have 234 examples of his judges causing harm on the bench.”

During Mr. Trump’s first term in office, he nominated 174 district court judges, 54 circuit court judges and three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.

By contrast, President Biden nominated 187 district court judges, 45 circuit court judges and one Supreme Court justice during his four years in office.