The U.S. Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump’s first and only nominee to the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, marking a significant milestone in reshaping the federal judiciary during his second term. The Senate, which remains under Republican control, approved Joshua Dunlap, a conservative attorney from Maine, in a 52–46 party-line vote. Dunlap’s confirmation gives Trump his first appointee to the 1st Circuit, which had previously been the only one of the 13 federal appeals courts without an active judge appointed by a Republican president. Historically, this court has been dominated by Democratic appointees and has often issued rulings that ran counter to Trump’s policy agenda, making this nomination politically symbolic as well as judicially consequential.
Before Dunlap’s appointment, New England courts had become a legal battleground where Democratic state attorneys general and advocacy groups frequently filed lawsuits to challenge Trump’s initiatives, knowing the region’s judiciary leaned liberal. During Trump’s first term, he made no appointments to the 1st Circuit, leaving it firmly in Democratic hands. At the end of President Joe Biden’s administration, an opportunity to fill the vacant seat arose when Judge William Kayatta, an Obama appointee, took senior status in October 2024—just days before the election that returned Trump to the White House. Biden had nominated Julia Lipez to replace Kayatta, but her confirmation stalled in the Senate, allowing Trump to seize the opportunity to nominate his own candidate once back in office. This sequence of events underscores how timing and partisan control in the Senate can shape the long-term ideological balance of the judiciary.
Trump nominated Joshua Dunlap in July, praising him as a principled defender of the U.S. Constitution who would “fearlessly defend” conservative values from the bench. Dunlap, a partner at the Maine law firm Pierce Atwood, earned his undergraduate degree from Pensacola Christian College and graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 2008. During law school, he interned at what is now known as the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a conservative Christian legal organization. His professional background reflects a record of advocacy on right-leaning legal causes, including challenges to Maine’s paid family and medical leave program, campaign finance laws, and ranked-choice voting system. Supporters view him as a highly qualified constitutional lawyer dedicated to protecting states’ rights and limiting government overreach, while critics worry his record signals a strong ideological bias.
Dunlap’s confirmation was not the only judicial victory for Trump this week. The Senate also confirmed Eric Tung, a conservative lawyer from Los Angeles, to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, long regarded as the nation’s most liberal appellate court. The vote was 52–45, also along party lines, making Tung Trump’s first confirmed appointee to the San Francisco-based circuit in his second term. His addition brings the total number of Trump appointees to the 9th Circuit to ten, including those confirmed during his first term between 2017 and 2020. With Tung’s confirmation, the court’s current composition stands at 16 Democratic appointees and 13 Republican appointees, signaling a narrowing ideological divide that could significantly influence future rulings on immigration, environmental, and civil rights issues.
Tung’s background closely aligns with Trump’s judicial preferences: a combination of conservative credentials, elite legal training, and experience within the federal justice system. A partner at Jones Day, one of the most influential law firms in Republican legal circles, Tung previously served as a federal prosecutor and worked for the U.S. Department of Justice. He clerked for Justice Neil Gorsuch both on the 10th Circuit and later on the Supreme Court, as well as for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, whose originalist philosophy remains central to Trump’s judicial selections. When Trump announced his nomination of Tung, he described him on social media as a “Tough Patriot” who would uphold the “Rule of Law in the most RADICAL, Leftist States” under the 9th Circuit’s jurisdiction, including California, Oregon, and Washington.
Together, the confirmations of Dunlap and Tung represent the continuation of Trump’s long-term strategy to reshape the federal judiciary with young, ideologically conservative judges who could serve for decades. These appointments not only alter the philosophical direction of two influential appellate courts but also demonstrate how Trump’s second-term administration is consolidating power within the judicial branch after setbacks during his first presidency. With Democrats largely unified in opposition, Republicans have relied on their Senate majority to accelerate judicial confirmations and ensure lasting influence over the interpretation of federal law. For Trump, these appointments serve as a major victory in his broader campaign to counterbalance what he perceives as liberal dominance in America’s courts — a central part of his political legacy.
