{"id":159652,"date":"2026-08-06T07:45:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T15:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/08\/06\/former-federal-prosecutors-to-senate-stop-confirming-election-deniers-to-the-federal-bench\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T07:45:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T15:45:58","slug":"former-federal-prosecutors-to-senate-stop-confirming-election-deniers-to-the-federal-bench","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/08\/06\/former-federal-prosecutors-to-senate-stop-confirming-election-deniers-to-the-federal-bench\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Federal Prosecutors To Senate: Stop Confirming Election Deniers To The Federal Bench"},"content":{"rendered":"

The results of the 2020 election are not just like, your opinion, man. There was a demonstrated winner and loser and the election was one of the most investigated in history and Joe Biden won. That is just a fact. Now 12 former federal prosecutors who worked on J6 cases sent a letter <\/a>to the Senate this week asking it to stop confirming judicial nominees who won\u2019t acknowledge this reality. And really, the ask is simple: don\u2019t give lifetime appointments to people who won\u2019t say Joe Biden won the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

The letter, released at a Capitol Hill press event Wednesday alongside Democrats from the Judiciary panel, targets what has become a defining \u2014 and deeply troubling \u2014 feature of Trump\u2019s second-term judicial confirmation process<\/a>. Not a single one of Trump\u2019s second-term court picks would say in their Senate hearing that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election. Not one. They also routinely dodge questions about January 6, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol with plans to stop the certification of Biden\u2019s victory, with nominees typically saying that they condemn violence generally, while refusing to characterize the specific events of that day.<\/p>\n

Former assistant U.S. attorney Sean Murphy, who spoke <\/a>at Wednesday\u2019s press event, did not mince words. \u201cPlease stop poisoning our courts by confirming appointees who refuse to admit basic historical truths,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is not a problem of perspective or political persuasion. It is a fundamental question of competence.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then he dropped this truth bomb, \u201cYou may have won yourself a lifetime appointment, but you have lost a lifetime of credibility. You traded a piece of your soul to occupy this seat. You will tell yourself that it was a small price, but the cost will be your credibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pattern Murphy is describing is, at this point, the explicit condition of being nominated. As HuffPost reported, nominees answer almost identically \u2014 saying Biden was \u201ccertified by Congress\u201d or that he \u201cserved\u201d as president, rather than simply acknowledging he won. They describe January 6 as a \u201cpolitical issue\u201d they can\u2019t comment on. The scripted uniformity of the evasions is itself telling: these nominees have been coached to perform loyalty to Trump\u2019s lies as a prerequisite for their nomination, and the Senate has been confirming them anyway. Including, it should be noted, 15 Democratic senators who voted for at least one of these nominees.<\/p>\n

Murphy\u2019s framing is that this is a \u201cfundamental question of competence\u201d rather than politics. And he\u2019s right. A judge who won\u2019t state a documented historical fact on the record \u2014 who has been coached to evade, to deflect, to perform loyalty to a lie as the price of a lifetime appointment \u2014 has already told you everything you need to know about how they\u2019ll rule when it matters.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Former Federal Prosecutors To Senate: Stop Confirming Election Deniers To The Federal Bench<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAppeal to Heaven flag on January 6 (Photo by Brent Stirton\/Getty Images)\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The results of the 2020 election are not just like, your opinion, man. There was a demonstrated winner and loser and the election was one of the most investigated in history and Joe Biden won. That is just a fact. Now 12 former federal prosecutors who worked on J6 cases sent a letter <\/a>to the Senate this week asking it to stop confirming judicial nominees who won\u2019t acknowledge this reality. And really, the ask is simple: don\u2019t give lifetime appointments to people who won\u2019t say Joe Biden won the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

The letter, released at a Capitol Hill press event Wednesday alongside Democrats from the Judiciary panel, targets what has become a defining \u2014 and deeply troubling \u2014 feature of Trump\u2019s second-term judicial confirmation process<\/a>. Not a single one of Trump\u2019s second-term court picks would say in their Senate hearing that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election. Not one. They also routinely dodge questions about January 6, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol with plans to stop the certification of Biden\u2019s victory, with nominees typically saying that they condemn violence generally, while refusing to characterize the specific events of that day.<\/p>\n

Former assistant U.S. attorney Sean Murphy, who spoke <\/a>at Wednesday\u2019s press event, did not mince words. \u201cPlease stop poisoning our courts by confirming appointees who refuse to admit basic historical truths,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is not a problem of perspective or political persuasion. It is a fundamental question of competence.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then he dropped this truth bomb, \u201cYou may have won yourself a lifetime appointment, but you have lost a lifetime of credibility. You traded a piece of your soul to occupy this seat. You will tell yourself that it was a small price, but the cost will be your credibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pattern Murphy is describing is, at this point, the explicit condition of being nominated. As HuffPost reported, nominees answer almost identically \u2014 saying Biden was \u201ccertified by Congress\u201d or that he \u201cserved\u201d as president, rather than simply acknowledging he won. They describe January 6 as a \u201cpolitical issue\u201d they can\u2019t comment on. The scripted uniformity of the evasions is itself telling: these nominees have been coached to perform loyalty to Trump\u2019s lies as a prerequisite for their nomination, and the Senate has been confirming them anyway. Including, it should be noted, 15 Democratic senators who voted for at least one of these nominees.<\/p>\n

Murphy\u2019s framing is that this is a \u201cfundamental question of competence\u201d rather than politics. And he\u2019s right. A judge who won\u2019t state a documented historical fact on the record \u2014 who has been coached to evade, to deflect, to perform loyalty to a lie as the price of a lifetime appointment \u2014 has already told you everything you need to know about how they\u2019ll rule when it matters.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The results of the 2020 election are not just like, your opinion, man. There was a demonstrated winner and loser and the election was one of the most investigated in history and Joe Biden won. That is just a fact. Now 12 former federal prosecutors who worked on J6 cases sent a letter to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":159568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-cKKZYz.jpg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}