Unqualified And Ideological: A Guide To Trump's Worst Judges

WASHINGTON ― Senate Republicans are confirming so many of President Donald Trump’s nominees to lifetime federal court seats, it’s hard to keep up. ASSOCIATED PRESS Judge Kyle Duncan on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit Defended voter suppression law that targeted African Americans “with almost surgical precision” As an attorney, Duncan defended North Carolina’s egregious voter suppression law that a federal appeals court struck down in 2016, ruling that it discriminated against black voters and “targeted African Americans with almost surgical precision.” Duncan appealed the case to the Supreme Court, calling it “ludicrous” to suggest the law echoed Jim Crow laws. Tom Williams via Getty Images Judge Eric Miller on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit Made a career out of fighting Native Americans’ tribal sovereignty Miller built a legal career out of fighting tribal interests and sovereignty, so much so that one Native American leader described Miller’s law firm, Perkins Coie, as the go-to destination for jurisdictions that want “to fight an Indian tribe.” Two prominent Native organizations ― the National Congress of American Indians and the Native American Rights Fund ― wrote to Judiciary Committee leaders raising concerns about Miller’s advocacy for “undermining the rights of Indian tribes, often taking extreme positions and using pejorative language to denigrate tribal rights.” But every Senate Republican voted to confirm him. CSPAN Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Called being transgender “a delusion” Kacsmaryk called it “a grave mistake” to include protections for LGBTQ people in the Violence Against Women Act, and he signed a 2016 letter that called being transgender “a delusion.” He also criticized the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, saying “seven justices of the Supreme Court found an unwritten ‘fundamental right’ to abortion hiding in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the shadowy ‘penumbras’ of the Bill of Rights, a celestial phenomenon invisible to the non-lawyer eye.” Every Senate Republican but one, Sen. Susan Collins, voted to confirm him. C-Span Judge Stephen Clark on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri Claimed same-sex marriage leads to polygamy Clark claimed that same-sex marriage leads to polygamy in a 2016 speech at Duke University, and in another 2016 speech, he criticized the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, stating that marriage equality “is not an issue for nine unelected, unaccountable people with lifetime tenure … be deciding because there is not a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.” Clark was also on the board of directors of Lawyers for Life, which issued a 2016 flyer with Clark’s name on it, declaring: “Roe vs. Wade gave doctors a license to kill unborn children.