Biden celebrates 235 judicial confirmations — a ‘vital check on the excesses of other branches’

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy With just over two weeks until he cedes the reins of the executive branch to Donald Trump, President Joe Biden says the 235 judges confirmed to the federal bench during his four years in office will serve as a bulwark against abuses from the executive and legislative branches and will represent what he described as “the best in America.” Joined by Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin of Illinois and Senate Majority Leader — soon to be Minority Leader — Chuck Schumer of New York, Biden spoke of the record number of judicial confirmations at an East Room ceremony attended by staff and supporters to mark the milestone, which the Democratic-led upper chamber reached late last month before recessing and ending legislative work for the year. open image in gallery Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is the first Black woman on the highest court in the land Unlike Trump’s overwhelmingly white and male nominees, the Biden administration has taken pains to increase the number of non-white, female and LGBT+ nominees to the federal bench during his time in office. A fact sheet released by the White House on Thursday described his nominees as having “transformed the federal bench” with a judiciary that looks like “the community it serves.” Speaking from the East Room not long after he was briefed on the New Year’s Day terrorist attack in New Orleans, Biden described the judges as “highly qualified people” who’ve had “distinguished legal, judicial and academic careers.” He said their backgrounds matter because judges spend their days “shaping the everyday lives of Americans, protecting our basic freedoms” when American institutions are in jeopardy. “These judges also are a vital check in the excesses of other branches of government, including Congress and the executive branch, when they overreach and run afoul of the constitutional institutional safeguards,” Biden continued before adding that he was “proud of the legacy” he will leave in the form of the judges he’s put on the bench because they will “continue to uphold our nation's founding principles of liberty, justice, equality, and do it for decades to come.”