White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told a group of conservatives on Wednesday night that President Trump’s reshaping of the courts will be his most lasting accomplishment, saying that the impact on the judiciary will be felt for “decades and decades.”
Speaking at a gala hosted by the conservative American Principles Project, Sanders said that Trump’s “remaking” of the courts is an overlooked but potentially defining aspect of his legacy that goes beyond the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.
“Everyone focuses on Neil Gorsuch, which was a huge victory and something I think will have a very lasting impact and legacy on our country, but beyond that is the entire remake of the federal judiciary that is, I think, going to be one of the greatest and most important things that President Trump does in his time in office,” Sanders said.
{mosads}“There have been a couple of stories in the last few weeks that talk about a total shift in the judiciary, in the way it looks,” Sanders continued. “These are young guys that really believe in upholding the Constitution and protecting it and not taking the politics they have and trying to implement that into the judiciary. I think that’s going to make a really big difference and that’s something that I think is going to last so much further beyond his administration. I think that’s something we’re going to see have an impact for decades and decades.”
Trump has been rapidly filling the more than 100 vacancies in the federal courts with lifetime appointments of judges, many of whom come with a seal of approval from the conservative Federalist Society.
So far, the Senate has confirmed more than a dozen of Trump’s judicial nominees, while scores more are pending approval. But conservatives believe Trump’s appointments to the lower district and circuit courts could be just as valuable in the long run.
Sanders pointed to the legal battle over control of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) as evidence of the real-world impact of Trump’s judicial appointments.
Judge Timothy Kelly of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia — a Trump nominee — sided with the administration in rejecting a lawsuit from an official who claimed that she was the rightful acting director of the CFPB, not Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, whom the president had appointed to serve in an interim role after CFPB Director Richard Cordray stepped down.
“It came back to a decision made by a judge that President Trump had appointed recently,” Sanders said. “That’s why I think focusing so much on the judiciary will have so much of an impact and allow more of the big policy changes and shifts and the radical change he’s bringing to Washington go into affect by doing that.”