Over the course of President Donald Trump’s second term, says New York Times legal columnist Jeffrey Toobin, one pattern has stood out in regard to the federal judges he nominates. During their confirmation hearings, when asked who won the 2020 presidential election, they consistently word their responses to leave the door open for election denial.

At each hearing, Senate Judiciary member Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) typically asks the same question: “Who won the popular vote in 2020?”

And every time, he receives some variation of the same response: “President Biden was certified and served four years as president.”

The key word there is “certified.” While it acknowledges that Biden was indeed named president, it doesn’t explicitly state that he outright “won” the election. This, says Toobin, is a blatant attempt to curry favor with Trump, who six years later still denies his loss on a regular basis.

Responses like this are common among Trump nominees to any government position, but according to Toobin, “There is a special peril when federal judges, who serve for life if confirmed, agree to demean themselves in this fashion.”

Blumenthal told Toobin that he always asks judicial nominees about the 2020 election as a “test of whether they are willing to stand up and be independent arbiters of fact, which they are required to be as district court judges, who often have to show some courage and backbone with cases with unpopular causes. The fact that they are so meek and easily cowed speaks volumes about their qualifications for the job.”

These days, such cowed behavior from nominees speaks to a new requirement for Trump approval: absolute loyalty. While during his first term he was content to select judges from a list provided by the conservative Federalist Society — judges who were more dedicated to conservative ideology than any one president — during his second term, he has made it clear that he expects personal loyalty above all else.

As an example for this, Toobin pointed to Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, two Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump who drew his ire after ruling against his tariffs. For Gorsuch and Coney Barrett, the decision was likely motivated by little more than their interpretation of the law. But for Trump, this was an act of betrayal. He didn’t merely express disapproval of their decision, but declared them “an embarrassment to their families.”

To Toobin, this kind of reaction portends that Trump will from now on select only judges he thinks are directly loyal to him above all else.

For his part, Senator Blumenthal says that with each nomination, he will continue to press the question of the 2020 election.

“I keep waiting for one or two of them to stand up and say, ‘I’m not going to say this nonsense. I’ve got plenty of other ways to make a living,’” he said. During one recent hearing, he was blunt with his words to a stonewalling nominee: “Don’t you feel kind of like monkeys or puppets here?”

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