Donald Trump will not be president of the United States forever. He will lose his reelection bid in 2020 or be term-limited out of office in 2024. Or perhaps the inevitable result of human frailty will do its work and put an end to Trump's ongoing illegal reign. Most people now living will outlast his presidency and be left to pick up the pieces of the shattered nation he will leave behind.
But Trump's Court—the collection of judges and justices now swarming our judicial system, nominated and confirmed to lifetime appointments on his recommendation—will linger, like an infected wound poisoning the body politic even after the initial injury has scabbed over. As of this writing, the Trump administration has had 123 federal judges confirmed, including 41 to the federal courts of appeal—the circuit courts just one rung below the Supreme Court. By comparison, at this point in his presidency, Barack Obama had pushed only 19 circuit-court judges through to confirmation. Trump's appointees now account for some 14 percent of the federal judiciary and more than 22 percent of the judges on the nation's courts of appeal—and he has been in office for just two and a half years. Many of Trump's other offenses could be overturned by a new president with the stroke of a pen. Trump's Court will remain as his legacy.
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