From Jonathan Bernstein:
The president has appointed orthodox Republicans to the federal bench, not cronies.
Still, one of the few things that most Republicans care about intensely is the nomination and confirmation of orthodox Republican judges. And that’s what Trump gave them.
What that meant, however, was that Trump’s judges weren’t cronies who were loyal to him while being indifferent to the conservative legal agenda. Quite the opposite. His three Supreme Court nominees are good examples: It’s likely that any other Republican president would’ve made the exact same choices. That’s also true for his circuit and district court nominees. Sure, to the extent that they’re partisan, they’ll rule in favor of policies that Republicans prefer. That’s what they tended to do before the election. And they would probably lean toward Trump if his post-election lawsuits presented them with plausible paths within the law. But they simply don’t share Trump’s total lawlessness — and most of them have longer-range goals in mind, not simply the preservation of Donald Trump’s administration.
All of which is yet another example of Trump’s fundamental weakness as a president.