The collapse of three of President Trump’s judicial nominations in the span of a week has embarrassed the White House, revealed weaknesses in its vetting process and threatened to cause Senate Republicans to apply more scrutiny to the president’s picks.
In their push to fill scores of vacancies on federal circuit and district courts at the historic pace demanded by Trump, White House officials have overlooked vulnerabilities in the backgrounds of some of the president’s nominees. Critics allege that White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn III, who is overseeing the process, has sacrificed traditional qualifications for ideological purity and youth.
But the downfalls of three nominees — Jeff Mateer, Matthew Petersen and Brett Talley — are also aberrations in what has been a quiet yet undeniable success for Trump: A year-long drive to permanently alter the judiciary by nominating and confirming conservative jurists to lifetime appointments on the federal bench.
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