Senator Adam Schiff changed tactics at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, choosing to approach the 2020 election question indirectly rather than head-on.
Instead of asking Trump judicial nominee Gregory Carl Cook directly who won the 2020 election, Schiff started with earlier, less contested races.
The senator first asked Cook who won the 2008 presidential election between Barack Obama and John McCain, drawing a carefully worded response.
“I believe President Obama was sworn into office, so I’m certain he won, Senator,” Cook said, confirming the result of that race without apparent hesitation.
Cook continued to confirm subsequent election results, agreeing that Obama had also won the 2012 presidential race without controversy.
When the questioning reached 2016, the exchange slowed somewhat, with Cook eventually noting that Donald Trump “was sworn into office” rather than offering a more direct confirmation.
The pattern of nominees offering scripted, non-committal answers about the 2020 election has become a defining feature of Trump’s second-term judicial confirmation hearings in the Senate.
Every single Trump nominee questioned about the 2020 presidential result has produced essentially the same carefully constructed non-answer, frustrating Democratic members of the committee.
Even Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley was recently caught on a hot mic questioning the strategy, reportedly wondering aloud: “What would be wrong if they said Biden won?”
Grassley’s candid aside underscores a growing unease, even among Republicans, over the consistency with which nominees sidestep what many consider a settled and straightforward historical question.
The hearings have drawn scrutiny from former federal prosecutors who have publicly called on the Senate to stop confirming individuals they characterise as election deniers to lifetime seats on the federal bench.
Judicial appointments carry enormous long-term consequences for the American legal system, with federal judges serving lifetime tenure and shaping rulings on constitutional and civil rights matters for decades.
Trump’s second term has seen a renewed and accelerated push to reshape the federal judiciary, with nominations moving through the Republican-controlled Senate at a significant pace.
Democrats on the committee have struggled to find effective lines of questioning that expose nominees’ positions, given the polished and practised nature of the responses being offered.
Schiff’s approach of working chronologically through presidential elections before reaching 2020 represents one of the more creative attempts yet to pierce through the prepared answers nominees have been delivering.