Trump's court appointments have been the smoothest part of his presidency because he's had some help

[dalton99a]

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-federalist-20180703-story.html

Trump's court appointments have been the smoothest part of his presidency — because he's had some help
By Noah Bierman
Jul 03, 2018 | 4:25 PM | Washington
...

Unlike in other areas in which Trump insists on calling the shots — going with his gut, impulsively tweeting and altogether dispensing with the sort of deliberate and disciplined strategy essential to working with Congress — the president has deferred to a trio of more experienced hands when it comes to the judicial nominations so important to his conservative base.

"This is a zone where Trump is willing to say, 'I got a guy here who knows what he's doing,'" said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and informal Trump advisor.

Gingrich was talking about Donald McGahn, the White House counsel who has held a tight grip on the interview process. Yet Gingrich and others give singular credit to Leonard Leo, the executive vice president of the Federalist Society, a national network of conservative lawyers; Leo, starting at Trump's request during the 2016 campaign, worked along with the Heritage Foundation to create the unprecedented list of Supreme Court candidates that Trump has used to select Gorsuch and his soon-to-be-announced pick.

The third player is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a master tactician who for nearly a year blocked President Obama's final Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, leaving the vacancy for Trump to fill, with Gorsuch. Since then McConnell has engineered smooth confirmations in the narrowly Republican-controlled Senate for Gorsuch and dozens of lower-court nominees, almost all of whom have been vetted by Leo. McConnell calls his role in the judiciary's makeover his proudest legacy.

Lesser known than the other two men, Leo has spent decades working toward a judiciary that shares his antiabortion rights views and conservative positions on interpreting the Constitution narrowly. As he did during the Gorsuch confirmation process, Leo has taken a leave from the Federalist Society to advise Trump. This week he created a war room to spearhead the selection and confirmation process.

[Jim Lane]

1. Trump had some help from Democrats, too.

Three DINOs in the Senate, knowing that the seat had been blatantly stolen from Obama's nominee, nevertheless voted to confirm Gorsuch. Shame!