WATCH: Trump Nominees REFUSE to Answer BASIC Questions

0:00 Scott McFarland reports.

0:01 Let's get right to it.

0:02 The big story, the risky, if not downright dangerous thing that's unfolding

0:06 inside some obscure places here in Washington.

0:09 Some lowp profofile Senate hearings on judicial nominees.

0:13 I'll explain in a moment, but first, hit the subscribe button.

0:15 Continue to support independent journalism.

0:19 Over 40 different judicial nominees of Trump's have been asked

0:24 in recent weeks and months if Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

0:28 of those 44 nominees asked zero.

0:33 Declaratively answered, "Yes, of course he won.

0:35 Of course, it's fact.

0:36 Of course, I'm a judge and I'm

0:37 going to acknowledge facts on the table." Instead,

0:40 they gave very mushy, potentially troubling answers like this.

0:44 Who won the 2020 election?

0:50 Senator, I wanted to be mindful of the cannons here.

0:53 I know this question has come up many times in these hearings

0:56 and it's become an issue of significant political dispute and debate.

1:02 So with that, you know,

1:04 I'd say that that President Biden was certified the winner of the 2020 election,

1:10 though you're unwilling to say he won the election.

1:12 How about you, Mr.

1:13 Roberts?

1:17 I'm sorry, Senator.

1:18 Um, I'm sorry, Mr.

1:20 Jones.

1:21 I apologize, Senator.

1:22 Um I have this this same answer as my colleague Senator

1:26 same answer as the previous one the previous nominee the Senate did

1:30 uh Mr.

1:30 Coons how about you

1:33 thank you Senator and I have the same answer as Mr.

1:35 Same answer Mr.

1:36 Mark, same answer.

1:39 Senator, what would be wrong?

1:42 I am uh

1:46 amazed

1:48 and really appalled that nominees for a lifetime appointment to the federal

1:58 bench are unwilling to respond on an issue of fact.

2:03 And I'm not going to try to get an answer out

2:07 of you because clearly you've been rehearsed to provide a stock

2:14 answer which I think really reflects not only on your honesty

2:20 but really on your fitness to be a federal judge.

2:23 Taking it to the next level,

2:25 Delaware Democratic Senator Chris Coons asked a judicial

2:28 nominee if the 22nd amendment in fact

2:30 means Trump can't win a third term

2:33 as president and got an equivocal ambiguous response.

2:39 Uh Mr.

2:40 Mark, if I might um just tell me about the 22nd Amendment.

2:43 What does it provide?

2:47 The 22nd Amendment, Senator, my career has mostly been in criminal prosecution.

2:53 and I haven't had an opportunity to to use that one specifically.

2:57 Anyone able to help on the 22nd amendment to the United States Constitution?

3:05 Senator, I believe it is the amendment

3:07 that deals with a two-term limitation on correct service.

3:10 It states no person shall be elected

3:12 to the office of the president more than twice.

3:14 Um, Mr.

3:15 Mark, is President Trump eligible to run for president again in 2028?

3:23 Senator, with a without considering all the facts and and looking at everything,

3:27 depending on what the situation is,

3:29 this to me strikes as more of a hypothetical of something that could be

3:33 It's not a hypothetical.

3:33 Has President Trump been elected president twice?

3:36 President Trump has been certified the president of the United States two times.

3:40 Is he eligible to run for a third term under our Constitution?

3:43 Um, I would have to to review the the All I need to tell you is the language

3:48 of the constitutional amendment that makes it clear that no,

3:50 he is not eligible to run for a third term.

3:53 Anybody else brave enough to say that the Constitution

3:55 of the United States prevents President Trump from seeking a third term?

4:01 Anybody willing to apply the Constitution

4:03 by its plain language in the 22nd amendment?

4:07 Nobody.

4:08 All right, let's move on.

4:10 So, this is all very troubling to a lot of people here in Washington DC,

4:14 including the groups that have been trying to track these nominations

4:19 and track the appointees and what they say in the Trump administration.

4:22 The group Demand Justice, composed of some progressive and Democratic activists,

4:26 including Josh Orton, a former aid to then Vice President Kla Harris.

4:31 Orton says he's in part troubled that every one

4:35 of these nominees seems to be singing from the same hymbook,

4:37 that they're giving such symmetrical answers as if

4:40 they've been choreographed in advance by the White House.

4:44 It tells me that Donald Trump is a small,

4:48 vulnerable man who can't possibly tolerate someone

4:54 saying the truth about his 2020 loss.

4:56 These answers were clearly given to every

4:59 one of these nominees from the White House.

5:02 And I I believe that the threshold for this answer is what

5:07 is it okay for me to say that won't make Donald Trump mad?

5:12 Because we know that unlike the first term,

5:14 he's announcing every one of his federal judicial nominees on True Social.

5:18 And every one of those nominees knows that just

5:21 as quickly as their nomination was announced on True Social,

5:24 it could get yanked on True Social the same.

5:26 Like, you know, think about this.

5:29 Is there any universe in which we can imagine a nominee that Trump nominated

5:35 in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee

5:36 when they're asked who won the 2020 election?

5:39 If they said Joe Biden won and Donald Trump lost, I don't think anybody,

5:44 including any Republican who's paying attention, could possibly say that, "Yeah,

5:49 Donald Trump would be fine

5:50 with that and wouldn't pull their nomination." Of course,

5:52 Donald Trump was wouldn't yank their nomination.

5:55 It is a line you cannot cross with him.

5:57 It is his political lipmus test.

5:58 Orton also says, "It's troubling that these nominees,

6:01 with whom we would trust the federal criminal justice

6:04 system if they became lifetime appointees to the federal courts,

6:07 can't unequivocally say somebody won an election." And the results prove it.

6:12 The most important issue,

6:14 the sort of foundational myth of Donald Trump's second term,

6:18 which is that he won the 2020 election and his attempted

6:21 overthrow of those election results on January 6th didn't happen.

6:26 And so my question is, if you can't trust a nominee to a lifetime seat

6:31 on the federal bench to answer

6:33 honestly about those two seismic historical events,

6:38 how in the world could anyone who comes

6:40 before them in a court once they're seated

6:43 trust that they will be independent and not

6:46 essentially rule however whatever is in Trump's best interest.

6:51 If I'm say um a business owner or a property

6:53 owner and I down the line, you know, sometime in the past donated to one

6:57 of Trump's opponents or said something bad about Trump,

7:00 I I have to go in assuming that I'm not going to get a fair shake.

7:04 And that's just it's not consistent with the Democratic process.

7:08 And I think it's this is one of those areas where I

7:10 think we you know we we've seen how he's warped the justice department

7:15 and ICE and he's used sort of the avenues of the the executive

7:18 branch you know for his own gain and for his own favor.

7:22 And I think what this tells us is he sees

7:24 the judicial branch and the federal courts the exact same way.

7:27 I talked about this with Don Lemon and we

7:31 expressed some concern that this stuff is contagious.

7:34 Once you put false information into the ecosphere,

7:37 as Trump has done about the election and about January 6th,

7:40 it's going to spread far and wide

7:43 and that legacy linear media may want to consider not

7:47 platforming these lies and that those who know

7:49 the lies to be lies stop perpetuating them, too.

7:53 it shocking to me and I believe does not get enough attention.

7:57 What did you think of that?

7:58 Two different things.

7:59 First of all, some of the blame

8:01 for this should be ascribed to legacy linear media because

8:05 legacy linear media has for now 6 years almost

8:09 platformed these malignant malicious lies about the 2020 election,

8:14 given them oxygen when they deserved none when they should have

8:17 been deplatformed because it gets

8:20 into the information ecosphere and pollutes it.

8:23 So much so you have judicial nominees who don't want

8:25 to take a stand on something that was factually true.

8:30 If platform lies, this is the contamination you're going to get.

8:34 Can I jump in real quick and hold that thought?

8:36 That was one of my biggest beefs um with Legacy Media when I

8:41 was in Legacy Media that I used to fight with my former employee about.

8:46 We need to hear the other side.

8:47 I'm like, but there is no other side to that lie.

8:50 There is, look at what the courts have done.

8:53 Why do we keep bringing people on just to lie

8:55 to the American people when we know it is not the truth?

9:00 I So, thank you.

9:01 I'm so Thank you for saying that.

9:03 I used to ask, what is our election denial policy?

9:07 What is our insurrection denial policy?

9:09 Yeah, of course.

9:10 Media has blame to carry on that one.

9:12 And you and I have divorced ourselves

9:14 from those from those platforms because we didn't we didn't

9:17 find that to be a worthy place to spend

9:19 our time if they're going to platform lies.

9:22 Um and I mean the broader legacy media, not any individual organization.

9:26 But secondly, watch how this is going to pivot now, Don.

9:30 This is going to pivot to senators asking

9:33 judicial nominees what they think about the 22nd amendment.

9:36 Um, we had one example of that in recent

9:38 days where a judicial nominee seemed to equivocate about

9:41 whether the president can have a third term even

9:44 though the 22nd amendment seems pretty unequivocal to me.

9:48 You're going to get that question.

9:49 Let's see if that same pattern forms among judicial nominees

9:52 of the president who don't want to say he can't stay past 2028.

9:56 That's a lot more dangerous than saying 2020 is still somehow in dispute.

10:00 And the lies about January 6th are pernitious and continuing to spread as well.

10:05 the denialism that Trump supporters were the ones who stormed the capital,

10:09 beat, maimed, and injured police officers.

10:12 Elaine Lauria was a member of the then House January 6 Select Committee,

10:16 which investigated the 2020 election lies and the attack on the capital.

10:20 She is running again to get her seat back in the US House in Virginia.

10:25 And Lauria says, "Yeah,

10:26 this whitewashing of history continues to be a problem and a menace."

10:31 Um I I I do truly believe that, you know, history when written uh looking back

10:35 on this will tell the truth about this time.

10:38 It will not elevate January 6 riers to heroes.

10:41 It will clearly lay out um the fact that you know,

10:45 President Biden won the 2020 election.

10:47 um and that all of these lies and conspiracy

10:50 theories were really um you know meant for the Republicans

10:54 to um essentially duke people and regain political power based

10:58 off of a chip on Trump's shoulder and a grudge, but it was all lies.

11:02 Um and I think you probably saw when we had a 5-year

11:06 commemorative hearing of um January 6th and the committee came back together,

11:10 we had a woman who testified and um you know, she was there at the capital.

11:15 She was trampled by, you know, other fellow riers.

11:18 Her life was literally saved by Capitol police officers while she was injured.

11:23 Um, but in the end, you know, five years later, looking back,

11:26 you know, she clearly said uh to the world like this was a lie.

11:29 I was duped.

11:30 I was lied to.

11:31 I was called by Trump to the capital um to to be there for this.

11:36 And it was all a lie.

11:37 And you know, I think that you know what she

11:39 was trying to lay out about making sure that you know,

11:42 everyone else had fallen under that trap.

11:44 I understood that as well.

11:45 It is federal prosecutors that appear to be doing the bidding

11:48 of the president or taking up the president's preferred cases.

11:52 In the meantime, we've talked about this case

11:54 against James Comey for the seashells on the seashore.

11:58 He's going to go back to court on May 11th

12:00 for a preliminary hearing at the federal

12:02 courthouse in Greenville, North Carolina.

12:04 And I've been getting a lot of comments about this case.

12:06 Mark writes that um how much money

12:08 has been wasted on vindictive prosecutions by Trump.

12:12 This isn't the first one.

12:13 And they are putting a team of prosecutors on some of these high-profile cases,

12:16 including James Comey's first case, the Leticia James case,

12:20 the wouldbe case against Democratic members of Congress or Jerome Pal.

12:23 It's all left and right.

12:25 And yes, it does take manpower.

12:27 does take money at a time when the Department of Justice,

12:29 as we reported over the weekend, is dealing with a staffing crisis,

12:33 down 3,400 attorneys from where they were at the start of 2025.

12:37 Another comment said, "Please check your voter registration.

12:40 Do your homework on candidates before election day.

12:44 We are less than 6 months till election day.

12:47 And no matter who you are planning to vote for, it

12:49 is critical to vote in the primaries which are coming

12:51 up in the coming days in so many states

12:54 and in the general election which is now less than 6 months away.

12:57 It's hard to believe.

12:58 Really want to thank you for watching.

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