A group of former government attorneys who prosecuted defendants in the Jan. 6 riot are calling on the Senate to deny confirmation of any judicial nominee who refuses to say the riot was an attack on the U.S. democracy, that it was led by Trump supporters and that Joe Biden was legitimately elected president in 2020.
In a letter first obtained by NBC News, the 12 lawyers argue that the gravity of a lifetime appointment requires acknowledging the above points.
“For judges nominated for lifetime seats in the judiciary branch, this refusal to contradict the President’s lies is particularly dangerous, and raises significant questions about whether, once confirmed, a nominee could act independently and free from political interference from the president that nominated them. The truth matter,” the letter reads.
Democratic senators in particular have pressed Trump’s judicial nominees on their views about the 2020 election and the attack on the Capitol in 2021.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., recently questioned three nominees — Arthur Robert Jones, Michael Hendershot and Jeffrey Kuntz — on the points raised in today’s letter and all three refused to describe Jan. 6 as an attack or concede that Biden won the 2020 election. All three were eventually confirmed by the full Senate to lifetime appointments as federal judges.