Four of President Donald Trump's judicial nominees, including two for the Southern District of Texas, all declined under oath to say whether Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election or whether the U.S. Capitol was attacked on Jan. 6, 2021. The nominees testified Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Acting U.S. Attorney John Marck and Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney Arthur "Rob" Jones, both with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, each responded to the question of the 2020 presidential election by saying that Biden had been "certified" as the winner, but neither would say whether Biden had actually won. In response to the question of the attack on the Capitol, each said the matter was one of political controversy and it would violate Canon 5 of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges for them to respond.
Michael Hendershot, nominated for a U.S. district judgeship in the Northern District of Ohio, and Jeffrey Kuntz, nominated for a judgeship for the Southern District of Florida, responded in identical fashion to both questions.
"It was one of the most deflating situations I’ve seen in a while," said Carl Tobias, Williams Chair in Law at the University of Richmond School of Law and an expert on the judicial confirmation process. "The process is just deteriorating, and so partisanship and polarization and politicization are just rampant."
Trump has claimed repeatedly and without evidence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him and that he was the legitimate winner. Lawsuits challenging the results in multiple states were rejected by courts.
Trump repeated these claims before a crowd of people in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, shortly before they marched to the U.S. Capitol, stormed the building, and temporarily disrupted the certification of Biden’s electoral victory.
Multiple Republican lawmakers subsequently went on record denying the seriousness of the events of Jan. 6. U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) characterized the attack on the Capitol as a “normal tourist visit.”
Over the course of Biden’s term, more than 1,500 people were arrested and charged with federal crimes in connection with the attack on the Capitol. Trump pardoned nearly all of them after returning to office in 2025.
The judicial nominees' responses to questions about the 2020 election and Capitol attack drew sharp rebukes from the Democrats on the committee, including Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
"I am amazed and really appalled that nominees for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench are unwilling to respond on an issue of fact, and I’m not going to try to get an answer out of you because clearly you’ve been rehearsed to provide a stock answer, which I think really reflects not only on your honesty, but really on your fitness to be a federal judge because you are supposed to be independent," Blumenthal said. "We can disagree on issues of law. We can disagree on issues of fact, but for you to simply avoid a factual and responsive answer, I think, is a disrespect to this committee as well as to us."
There are currently four vacancies on the judicial bench for the Southern District of Texas, which includes divisions in Houston and Galveston. One opening was recently filled with former U.S. Attorney Nicholas Ganjei. He, too, declined to answer similar questions from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"I think it was embarrassing for them to do that, but they didn’t seem daunted by it," Tobias said. "I think the upshot is that the candidates might be withdrawn by Trump if they were to say something else."
The Judiciary Committee is expected to vote before Memorial Day on whether to send the nominations to the full Senate.
"I can’t think of any [Trump] nominee who hasn’t gotten full support from the Republican people in the committee," Tobias said, noting most of the votes on such nominees fall 12-10 along party lines.
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