Schmitt Asks Trump Judicial Noms About A Time They Adhered To The Law Even When It Was Unpopular

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Thank you. Um I'll just I'll start and I'll just ask if each one of you can address it. I'll ask a two-part question, I suppose, and then turn over to Senator Durban. But so, um how would you describe your political I'm starting. How would you describe your judicial philosophy? Very important distinction. um your your judicial philosophy and can you identify a moment um in your professional life um where you know um things may have been difficult but you you did the right thing anyway um you adhered to the law um even though it may have been unpopular.

[00:00:35]>> Thank you Senator. Um I would describe myself as an originalist and a textualist. That that would be my approach to interpreting uh statutory or constitutional provisions. Um, I'm happy to explain that further if you would like, Senator. As for your questions about standing up to hard situations, it's it's honestly hard to to pick one.

[00:00:54]Um, I've represented my clients uh in high-profile cases and cases that had negative media attention and negative scrutiny. And my clients have been really scared in those situations. that I've had clients who have had death threats um in types of cases because of coverages and often unfair coverage th those cases were getting and it has truly been my professional honor to stand next to them and to kind of a lot of times stand in front of them and be their public facing voice and to be the one advocating for them in court and to be the one preparing them and telling them it's going to be okay and standing with them in court or in a deposition.

[00:01:35]Um, I I've come across that situation probably more times than I can count.

[00:01:41]And then on the flip side of that coin, the other hard thing is I've had clients who um have had real problems, who've had exposure, who who I needed to counsel strongly and firmly about um how to proceed and the issues with their case. And you know, a lot of times people want their lawyer to tell them what they want to hear. And a lot of times being a good lawyer involves telling your clients what they don't want to hear. And I've done that more times than I can count to.

[00:02:11]>> Senator, I would uh describe my judicial philosophy as textualism when it comes to interpreting statutes and originalism when it comes to interpreting the constitution. Uh it was Justice Scalia who I believe made that distinction, at least as I'm aware of it. And I I agree with that distinction. That's the distinction that I would follow on the bench. With regard to an act of courage, I would cite you to something that has happened fairly recently in Kansas. And I can't comment on the specifics of the investigation because there is litigation pending. But avoiding the specifics and just talking about what happened, it would be an effort that we undertook recently, meaning the Attorney General's office and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to enforce marijuana laws in Kansas that had not been enforced since the passage of the Farm Bill. And I knew that that wasn't going to be popular with certain segments of the political spectrum. I knew it wasn't going to be popular with the public and I knew it would draw a tremendous amount of backlash. But nevertheless, based on the science that we were seeing, based on the harm that we were seeing, it was undoubtedly in my right in my mind the right thing to do. And as a result, that's what we did.

[00:03:22]Senator, like the others, I agree. I'm a textualist when it comes to statutory construction and an originalist when it comes to the Constitution. With regard to a difficult case, uh I can recall one when I was on the court of appeals where uh this defendant had been convicted of murder, first-degree murder, and uh sought habious relief uh asserting ineffective assistance of counsel and his council's performance was deficient.

[00:03:53]And in fact, it was deficient enough uh to undermine our confidence in the outcome of that trial. And so we vacated his conviction and ordered a new trial.

[00:04:04]Even though the evidence there was strong evidence, anytime you let someone who's been convicted of murder uh go, uh that's always a difficult thing to do.

[00:04:13]But it was what the law required and that's what we did.