The administration's effort to reshape the federal judiciary, which set a brisk pace in President Donald Trump's first year back in office, appears to be slowing amid a growing number of vacancies, James Rosen, Newsmax chief Washington correspondent, reported Tuesday.
"Having confirmed 26 federal judges last year, the Republican-led Senate exceeded the pace set during the first year of President Trump's first term in office," Rosen said on "American Agenda."
Rosen added that aides to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told Newsmax that the panel "held hearings for 96% of the judicial nominations that the administration sent up to the Hill last year, the highest percentage since 1980."
But despite that early momentum, Rosen said committee staff told Newsmax that "it is incumbent on the White House and home state senators to keep the nomination machine churning."
Citing data from the Article III Project, a conservative legal advocacy group, Rosen reported that there are "15 vacancies for federal district court judgeships in states where each party has one senator representing the state."
More strikingly, he added, "there are nearly two dozen vacancies for district court judgeships in eight states where both senators are Republican."
Those states include Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project and a former chief counsel for nominations to Grassley, has played a role in confirming roughly 300 federal judges and three Supreme Court justices.
In an interview with Newsmax, Davis pushed back on Chief Justice John Roberts' assertion that there are no "Obama judges or Trump judges."
"Despite what the chief justice has said, there is definitely a difference between a Republican judge who follows the law and a Democrat judge who sabotages the will of the American people and disregards the law," Davis said.
"I have been turning up the heat, and it's working because I've heard from my friends inside the Trump administration that we've gotten these senators' attention, and they're finally coming to the table."
Rosen reported Davis also noted that 62 of 93 U.S. attorney positions across the country also remain vacant, underscoring what conservative activists describe as unfinished business in staffing the federal courts and key law enforcement posts.
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