in the final weeks of this Congress Democrats are making a lastminute push to confirm a number of President Biden's judicial nominees our White House correspondent Laura Baron Lopez has more President Joe Biden has appointed 221 federal judges during his time in office but with several outstanding appointments Democratic Party leaders are racing against the clock to secure confirmations that could shape the Judiciary for decades to understand the impact of these appointments I'm joined by Steven vladic law professor at Georgetown University Professor vladic thank you so much for joining us Senate Democrats are trying to confirm as many of President Biden's judicial nominees as possible before the end of this year before the end of the8th Congress where do things stand right now where we are right now basically is that Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans have basically entered into a deal where the Senate Republicans have largely acquiesced in at least proceed FAL Maneuvers that will allow for President Biden to fill most of the outstanding District Court uh vacancies that are still out there so this is the lowest level in the federal court system um in exchange for Which senate Democrats have been uh agreed to drop four Circuit Court nominees so four judges who would have served on the intermediate federal courts um and the idea here was that you know at least two of those four Circuit Court nominees might not have had majority support from the Democrats in the first place the other other two would have taken up a lot of procedural time that might have gotten in the way of confirming the rest of President Biden's nominees to the trial courts how could giving up those four nominees that you just mentioned have an impact on the federal uh Judicial System overall especially at the appall level we talk a lot of course about the Supreme Court we don't talk enough about the lower federal courts you know there are 13 federal courts of appeals some of them have as few as six judges on them these nominees can be the difference between whether court has a majority of democratic appointees a majority of Republican appointees and so I think you know one of the questions that we're going to have to watch is whether for each of those four vacancies you know are we going to see any effort from the judges who are creating the vacancies to potentially actually postpone their retirement um and stay on the job until maybe there's another Democratic president some point in the future or are all four of those seats now going to be open to be filled by President Trump and the Republican controll Senate come January I don't think we fully know yet how that's going to play out we should note that during the lame duck session When Donald Trump was in his first term the Senate confirmed 14 federal judges and the president uh elects 234 judicial appointments during his first term had a huge impact on a number of issues from abortion access to immigration and student loans why are these uh appointments such an important part of a president's Legacy judicial appointments are often the thing that lives on the longest after a president has left office I mean just recently we had the last uh judicial appointee by President Carter leave the bench um President Carter hasn't been president for 43 years so you know it's always been this way I mean John Adams most probably signature accomplishment as president was appointing Chief Justice John Marshall who would serve until 1835 34 years after Adam's presidency when a president gets so many nom as president Trump did as President Biden has you really get to a point where they can almost singlehandedly transform if not the entire Federal Judiciary than at least entire lower federal courts this has massive long-term effects that go well beyond just an individual president substantive policies looking ahead how do you see federal judges playing a role during Donald Trump's second Administration given that impact that you're talking about for Better or For Worse come January 20th when President Trump is sworn into office he's going to have you know Republican control in both chambers of Congress the margin of Republican control on the Senate is going to be such that he won't have the same constraints that he faced in his first term from the likes of Senator John McCain um and so I think that's going to put that much more pressure on courts whether the judges were appointed by President Trump or appointed by President Biden um or somebody else to be that bullwark to actually be be the last line of defense for those contexts in which president Trump Andor his you know uh appoint appointees in the defense department the justice department are pushing the envelope part of why we have courts even though the judges are picked by presidents is the idea that because these judges can serve for so long because they can stay on the court no matter what the president who appointed them thinks of them they have this Independence that at least theoretically allows them to stand up even to the president who appointed them whether that's going to happen uh with a second term president Trump obviously remains to be seen but at least that's the idea Professor vadic I want to ask you about some recent news by special counsel Jack Smith to dismiss both the election interference and the classified documents case against President elect Donald Trump citing the doj's policy that it's unconstitutional to prosecute a sitting president what precedent does this decision set for politics potentially being used to beat the legal system the is is that in the alternative World in which this case went forward you'd have the very awkward position of President Trump being prosecuted by his own justice department by officials who in theory right answered directly to him so I think this was in some respects a practical inevitability that once president Trump comes to office obviously this case was going away now it can end on the special council's terms as opposed to president Trump's terms but I think there's a much deeper problem here which is how we got to this point in the first place and just if we look back I mean I think it's going to end up being incredibly fateful that in January of 2021 the Senate didn't have the votes to convict president Trump in his second impeachment trial even though it had seven Republican Senators who were willing to cross the aisle and vote against President Trump that was a remarkable to me missed opportunity um and I think one of the questions going into president Trump's second term is just much of a missed opportunity is that going to turn out to be some of that I think is going to depend not just on how president Trump handles his second term but on exactly what we've been talking about the extent to which the courts um are both willing and able to stand up to a president Trump if he tries to cross the lines again Professor Steven vadic thank you for your time thank you [Music]