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President Donald Trump on Tuesday formally named three more nominees for federal judgeships, announcing the picks on Truth Social as the Republican-controlled Senate races to confirm his nominees before Democrats take control of the chamber in January.
Trump said he was nominating Justice Department official T. Elliot Gaiser to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Texas Supreme Court Justice James Sullivan to the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, and William Grayson Lambert to the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, Bloomberg Law reported.
Gaiser has served in the Justice Department and clerked for Justice Samuel Alito, Judge Neomi Rao of the D.C. Circuit and Judge Edith Jones of the Fifth Circuit. Sullivan was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court in January 2025 by Governor Greg Abbott and lost his bid to keep the seat in last Tuesday's election; he clerked for Judge Thomas Griffith of the D.C. Circuit. Lambert clerked for Judge Dennis Shedd of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
The announcements came after the paperwork for all three nominees had already been sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee: Lambert's materials were sent last month, Sullivan's were received on November 4, the day after he lost his Texas court election, and Gaiser's were sent on Sunday. The formal announcement ends weeks of public silence from the White House, which had told reporters as recently as last week that it had "no new judicial nominations to announce at this time" even as the committee was already holding the nominees' questionnaires.
The three join a confirmation pile-up. There are 161 nominations awaiting Senate action, including 25 federal judges, and Senator Mike Lee has been pressing the Senate to use weekends and recess time to clear President Trump's slate before the majorities shift. Twenty-three judicial nominees are pending in the Senate, and Democrats take control of the chamber on January 3, 2027, when incoming Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is expected to block further confirmations to the courts of appeals.
The Senate Judiciary Committee met on Tuesday, holding a nominations hearing and voting on six nominees, with a further hearing scheduled for November 18 at which Sullivan is expected to appear. The Senate is then out for the Veterans Day break, and the nominees who advance this week could see full Senate consideration as soon as the week of November 16. Trump has had 56 lifetime judicial nominees confirmed so far in his second term.