The Senate just locked in another lifetime federal judge for Donald Trump.
Benjamin Flowers, formerly Ohio's top courtroom lawyer, was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on a razor-thin 49 to 46 vote, according to reports. The vote split almost entirely on party lines, and Democrats were absolutely fuming about the whole thing.
So what got them so heated? During his May 20 confirmation hearing, Flowers wouldn't give a clean, simple answer about who won the 2020 presidential election. When Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal pressed him on it, Flowers started saying that "legally speaking, Joe Biden was certified" before Blumenthal cut him off mid-sentence. Blumenthal then accused Flowers of rehearsing his responses with the White House, calling that behavior disqualifying. Classic confirmation hearing fireworks.
Here's where it gets spicy. Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley fired right back, pointing out that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pulled a similar move during her own hearings, telling senators it would be inappropriate to publicly comment on politically charged topics. Grassley essentially told Democrats they were playing by one set of rules for their picks and a totally different set for everyone else. Senator Mike Lee piled on, citing the federal judicial code of conduct to argue that nominees are held to the same ethical guardrails as sitting judges.
Flowers is filling the seat vacated by Judge Jeffrey Sutton on the Sixth Circuit, which covers cases out of Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The guy has a serious legal pedigree. He graduated from Ohio State University and the University of Chicago Law School. He clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge Sandra Ikuta and then for the legendary Justice Antonin Scalia. He spent time at powerhouse firm Jones Day and served as Ohio's 10th solicitor general, where he personally argued three cases before the Supreme Court. One of those was the successful challenge to OSHA's COVID vaccine mandate.
Democrats weren't done grilling him, though. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar brought up his defense of Ohio's six-week abortion restriction, which at the time lacked exceptions for rape or incest. She referenced the widely covered story of a 10-year-old rape victim who had to travel to Indiana for an abortion after exceeding Ohio's limit by just three days. Flowers acknowledged that any victim of rape, especially a child, suffers irreparable harm. But he also noted that as the state's solicitor general, his job was to defend existing state law, period.
University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias told Cleveland.com that Flowers fits the mold of Trump's appellate picks, describing them as "battle-hardened" conservatives, typically Federalist Society members who cut their teeth at major national law firms.
Trump keeps stacking the courts while Democrats keep losing their minds over it. The scoreboard doesn't lie.
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