President Donald Trump plans to nominate his personal attorney, Justin Smith, to the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, along with three trial court picks for Kansas.
Smith is currently representing Trump in the president’s request for the US Supreme Court to overturn a sexual abuse and defamation judgment handed down in a civil lawsuit from writer E. Jean Carroll. Smith is the counsel of record in that case, which is pending before the justices.
“He is a true America First Fighter, who will continue to deliver strong results for the American people,” Trump said of Smith Wednesday night in a Truth Social post announcing the intended nomination.
Smith is the seventh of Trump’s circuit court nominees so far in his second term. No more vacancies are available, because Republican-appointed judges eligible for retirement have been slow to leave the bench since he returned to the White House.
Smith is from the same Missouri law firm, James Otis Law Group, as two current Trump administration officials: Solicitor General D. John Sauer and White House staff secretary Will Scharf.
He also served as chief of staff and first assistant in the Missouri Attorney General’s Office when Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) held the post.
Trump also announced plans Wednesday to nominate Tony Mattivi, Jeffrey Kuhlman, and Tony Powell as trial court judges in the District of Kansas.
Powell is currently the state’s solicitor general, Mattivi is director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and a former federal prosecutor, and Kuhlman is a partner at law firm in Great Bend, Kansas.
Kansas was one of three states with two Republican senators where Trump had yet to announce intended judicial nominees.
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