A new team guides Trump 2.0 as he begins to fill judicial vacancies

Published May 7, 2025 6:00am ET



President Donald Trump is entering his second term facing a starkly different judicial landscape after transforming the federal judiciary in his first term — but with no less ambition to leave his mark.

On Thursday, Trump announced the first judicial nominee of his second term: Whitney Hermandorfer, a top lawyer in the Tennessee attorney general’s office, who Trump tapped for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Then, on Tuesday, he raised the number to five with the announcement of three federal district court nominees for the state of Missouri and a nominee to the Superior Court for the District of Columbia.

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