The opinion article, published July 9, warns that Donald Trump’s second term could be “quite different” if he appoints new justices on the high court. That is because Trump has reportedly soured on the well-known Federalist Society after relying on that group during his first term for legal recommendations to fill the powerful and vital high court.
“Everything we know about Mr. Trump today,” author Jay Willis writes, “suggests that he will take his judicial cues not from the conservative legal establishment, as he did previously, but instead from the conservative legal movement’s extreme fringes.”
A few paragraphs later, the article further explains that the reference to “extreme fringes” refers to AFA Action. The op-ed never mentions by name the Center for Judicial Renewal, the arm of AFA Action responsible for the list of names that caused Willis to panic, but Center director Phillip Jauregui nonetheless says a mention in The New York Times was good enough.
“I guess it's encouraging that somebody opposed to our work,” Jauregui tells AFN, “is highlighting us because they know that we're doing serious work.”
According to Jauregui, the Center has performed “thousands of hours of research” to suggest a final list of six names that meet the “constitutional definition” of a future U.S. Supreme Court justice.
Those names are James Ho; Stuart Kyle Duncan; Lawrence VanDyke; Kristen Waggoner; Morse Tan, and Mark Martin.
Among those names, AFN readers may recognize Waggoner, an attorney, who is president of Alliance Defending Freedom.
Duncan, a federal court judge, was mostly unknown to the public until he spoke at a class at Stanford Law School last year only to be ambushed by a mob of protesting Marxists.
The judge learned later that the school dean who supposedly rose to defend him, but then lectured him about his beliefs, had herself organized the mob. That dean was later punished for instigating the protest.
In the New York Times article, Willis’ version of that confrontation is that Judge Duncan is now known for “shrieking” at those protesters. Videos of his appearance show the judge unhappily pushed back on the “appalling idiots” in the classroom but never raised his voice.
According to Jauregui, no one from the Trump campaign has contacted AFA Action or the Center, or him, and Willis’ op-ed fails to explain why Trump would pick a future justice from AFA Action and the Center. It just concludes it's scary for the future of democracy if Trump picks one of those "radical" judges or attorneys.
Meanwhile, Jauregui says the Times “freaking out” about the list of names is a good sign.
“That's one of the reasons that we like them,” he says, “is because they have been tested by fire.”
Editor's Note: AFA Action is an affiliate of the American Family Association, the parent organization of the American Family News Network, which operates AFN.net.
