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WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed two of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees: Joshua Divine to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri, and Cristian Stevens to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Joshua Divine has emerged as one of Trump’s most extreme judicial nominations to date. An Accountable.US investigation recently revealed that Divine is leading the charge to revive the case to strip the decades-old FDA approval of the abortion pill mifepristone – outlandishly arguing that states are being harmed by fewer teen pregnancies, and that the loss of potential population has caused “diminishment of political representation” and “loss of federal funds.”

In response to his confirmation, Accountable.US President Caroline Ciccone issued the following statement: 

“In his first term, Donald Trump, his allies in Congress, and his special interest backers worked together to capture the courts and install judges who would impose an extreme ideological agenda. This time, Trump is taking his ploy even further by hand-picking judicial nominees for lifetime appointments who will be unfailingly loyal to the President, even when it means ignoring the rule of law. Nowhere is that more clear than with Joshua Divine, who has a clear record of undermining Americans’ fundamental freedoms – including supporting an effort to roll back Missouri’s constitutional right to reproductive freedom, and trying to revive the failed case to strip the science-based approval of medication abortion. Today, Republican Senators confirmed two judicial nominees who will be a rubber stamp for Trump and his out-of-touch agenda, and that should concern every American who values judicial independence.”

Accountable.US’s Judicial Nominations Watch is exposing the dangerous records of every one of Trump’s judicial nominees with detailed research reports. Read more on Divine and Stevens:

  • Joshua Divine has made his career in right-wing Missouri legal circles. He previously served as counsel for Senator Josh Hawley and is currently the Solicitor General of Missouri, overseeing the state’s appellate and special litigation divisions. Divine has defended some of the nation’s most extreme anti-abortion laws, even intervening in the lawsuit seeking to roll back the FDA’s mifepristone approval, which even the Trump administration has said should be tossed out. Divine has defended Trump’s abuse of power, even asking the Supreme Court to lift his gag order and delay his felony sentencing before the 2024 election. In his Senate Judiciary hearing, Divine tried to run away from his record of advocating for literacy tests required for voting, a relic of the Jim Crow era, and from previous comments he made that he was a self-described “zealot” for the anti-choice agenda.

  • Cristian Stevens is currently a judge on the Missouri Eastern District Court of Appeals. Previously, he served as a deputy attorney general in the criminal division of the Missouri AG’s office, United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Missouri, and attorney at Big Law firms. Stevens led the federal investigation into the shooting of Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer in 2014.

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