Trump to unveil judicial nominees

Washington, May 8 (IANS) Capitalising on an unusually high number of court vacancies, US President Donald Trump was on Monday set to roll out his first major tranche of judicial nominees in an exercise that will allow him to re-format the federal judiciary.

Two of the nominees who will be unveiled on Monday were on the list of Trump's potential Supreme Court justices: Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen, who will be nominated to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, and Justice David Stras, who sits on the Minnesota Supreme Court and is Trump's pick to sit on the 8th Circuit, Politico news reported.

Trump will name three other nominees to the appellate courts: Amy Coney Barrett to the 7th Circuit, John Bush to the Sixth Circuit and Kevin Newsom to the 11th Circuit.

The President also plans to name four federal District Court nominees: Dabney Friedrich in the District of Columbia, Terry Moorer in Alabama, David Nye in Idaho and Scott Palk in Oklahoma, as well as Damien Schiff to the US Court of Federal Claims.

The list of judicial nominees was confirmed to Politico news by a Trump advisor.

Conservative allies of the Trump administration say White House officials have worked diligently since Trump's inauguration in January to comb through suggested nominees, vet them and prepare them for nomination.

Still, Senate Republicans eager to begin filling more judicial vacancies after their victory over Neil Gorsuch's appointment as the 113th Justice of the US Supreme Court, had started to grow anxious about the pace of nominees coming from the Trump White House, which is facing 129 openings in the federal courts nationwide, reports Politico news.

To date, Trump has named just one judicial candidate aside from Gorsuch: Indian American Judge Amul Thapar to the 6th Circuit, who had his confirmation hearing last month and is awaiting a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee.