He’s by no means held public workplace or donned a decide’s robes, however an arch-conservative Los Angeles County lawyer is racing towards affirmation on the ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals, accelerating the once-liberal courtroom’s sharp rightward flip beneath President Trump.
A aggressive goal shooter with a background in a cryptocurrency, Eric Tung was approached by the White Home Counsel’s Workplace on March 28 to exchange Choose Sandra Segal Ikuta, a Bush appointee and one of many courtroom’s most distinguished conservatives, who’s taking senior standing.
A brand new father and nonetheless a relative unknown in nationwide authorized circles, Tung discovered an ally in pal Mike Davis, a reputed “decide whisperer” in Trump’s orbit. Chatting with the New York Submit in mid-March, Davis touted Tung as Ikuta’s doubtless successor.
The Pasadena lawyer appeared on a Federalist Society panel on the Reagan Library this yr, debating authorized efforts to restrain “ ‘brokers’ of the left.”
“Eric is a Robust Patriot, who will uphold the Rule of Legislation in essentially the most RADICAL, Leftist States like California, Oregon, and Washington,” Trump wrote on Fact Social when the nomination was introduced in July.
The response from California senators was apoplectic.
“Mr. Tung believes in a conception of the Structure that rejects equality and liberty, and that may flip again the clock and proceed to exclude huge sections of the American public from having fun with equal justice beneath the regulation,” mentioned Sen. Alex Padilla.
Up to now, senators from a possible decide’s dwelling state may block a nomination — a customized Trump exploded when he steamrolled Washington senators to put in Eric D. Miller to the ninth Circuit in 2019.
Tung has been tight-lipped about his ascent to the nation’s busiest circuit. He didn’t reply to inquiries from The Instances.
A Woodland Hills native and conservative Catholic convert, Tung made a reputation for himself as a champion of the crypto business and stylish authorized author, regularly lecturing at California regulation faculties and headlining Federalist Society occasions.
After graduating from Yale and the College of Chicago Legislation Faculty, he clerked for Supreme Court docket Justices Antonin Scalia and Neil Gorsuch earlier than becoming a member of the white-shoe regulation agency Jones Day, a feeder to the Trump Justice Division.
Many lauded the nomination when it was first introduced, together with the Nationwide Asian Pacific American Bar Assn.
“Eric is a extremely regarded originalist who would observe within the footsteps of Justice Scalia, for whom he clerked,” mentioned Carrie Campbell Severino, president of the Judicial Disaster Community, a conservative authorized advocacy group.
Teams on the left, together with Alliance for Justice, Demand Justice and the Nationwide Council of Jewish Girls, have lobbied towards placing Tung on the appellate courtroom.
If confirmed, Tung will likely be Trump’s eleventh appointment to the ninth Circuit, a courtroom the president vowed to remake when he first took workplace in 2017.
Throughout Trump’s first time period, Choose Ikuta was a part of a tiny conservative minority on the famously lopsided bench, a legacy of President Jimmy Carter’s choice to double the dimensions of the circuit and pack it with liberal appointees.
Many Trump judges ruffled feathers at first, and most have proven themselves to be “fairly conservative and fairly exhausting nosed,” mentioned Carl Tobias, a professor on the College of Richmond Faculty of Legislation.
Their ranks embody the previous Hawaii Atty. Gen. Choose Mark J. Bennett, in addition to the circuit’s first brazenly homosexual member, Choose Patrick J. Bumatay.
Trump’s appellate appointees helped ship him a number of controversial latest selections, together with the discovering in June that Trump had broad discretion to deploy the army on American streets. One other ninth Circuit ruling this month discovered that the administration may all-but remove the nation’s refugee program through an indefinite “pause.”
However they’ve additionally clashed sharply with the Justice Division’s attorneys, even in circumstances the place the appellate panel finally sided with the administration.
That’s what the president is making an attempt to keep away from this time round — notably together with his picks headed within the west, consultants mentioned.
“Individuals on the far proper are pushing [Trump] to have individuals who will likely be ‘brave’ judges — in different phrases, do issues which are actually unpopular that Trump likes,” Tobias mentioned.
Tung could match the invoice. Along with his crypto chops and avowed help for constitutional originalism, he has been an ardent defender of spiritual liberty and an opponent of affirmative motion. He shoots competitively as a part of the Worldwide Defensive Pistol Assn.
Each Tung and his spouse Emily Lataif have shut ties to the anti-abortion motion. Tung labored extensively with the architect of Texas’ heartbeat invoice; Lataif interned for the Susan B. Anthony Checklist, an anti-abortion coverage group that seeks to make IUDs and emergency contraception unlawful and opposes many types of in-vitro fertilization.
“Emily is the epitome of grace beneath stress, as was evidenced … when she and Eric needed to evacuate their dwelling through the California wildfires, solely days after welcoming their first little one,” Severino mentioned. “She’s labored on the highest ranges, from the White Home to the manager staff at Walmart, and her expertise is matched solely by her kindness and love for her household.”
When requested by Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware whether or not he believed IVF was protected by the Structure, Tung declined to reply.
It wasn’t the one query the nominee ducked. Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee accused Tung of giving solely “sham solutions” to their inquiries, each in chambers and thru written follow-ups.
After urgent him repeatedly for his place on landmark circumstances together with Obergefell vs. Hodges and Lawrence vs. Texas — privateness proper precedents Justice Clarence Thomas wrote needs to be reconsidered after the autumn of Roe vs. Wade — Sen. Adam Schiff pushed the nominee for his opinion on Loving vs. Virginia, the 1967 case affirming interracial marriage.
“Was that wrongly determined?” the California lawmaker requested the aspiring decide.
“Senator, my spouse and I are an interracial couple, so if that case had been wrongly determined I’d be in huge hassle,” Tung mentioned.
“You’re prepared to inform us you consider Loving was appropriately determined, however you’re not prepared to say the opposite selections had been appropriately determined,” Schiff mentioned. “That appears much less originalist and extra situational.”
