Senate Pulls It Off with a Crucial 49 - 46 Vote — Lawmakers Have Just Approved President Donald Trump's Judicial Nominee To 6th Circuit
Senate Pulls It Off with a Crucial 49 - 46 Vote — Lawmakers Have Just Approved President Donald Trump's Judicial Nominee To 6th Circuit
President Trump has faced repeated legal setbacks in trying to implement his agenda, thanks to left-wing federal judges appointed by Joe Biden and other Democratic presidents.
In most of those cases, the judges appear to be making decisions based on their political opposition to the president and his agenda, as many of their rulings have been overturned.
But that said, Trump has been—with the GOP-controlled Senate’s help—steadily filling judicial vacancies on federal benches throughout his second term, and the chamber confirmed another nominee largely along party-line votes on Wednesday.
The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Benjamin Flowers to a lifetime appointment on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit by a 49-46 vote, elevating the former Ohio solicitor general to the federal bench despite Democratic objections over his record and his refusal to state who won the 2020 presidential election.
Flowers, an attorney from Upper Arlington and a partner at Ashbrook Byrne Kresge Flowers LLC, will fill the vacancy left by Judge Jeffrey Sutton. President Trump nominated him to serve on the Sixth Circuit, which hears cases from Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
During Flowers’ May 20 confirmation hearing, Democratic senators questioned him about issues that President Donald Trump has disputed and criticized what they described as his evasive responses.
When Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., asked Flowers to identify the winner of the 2020 presidential election, Flowers replied that “legally speaking, Joe Biden was certified” before Blumenthal interrupted him.
Because Democrats have turned all hearings involving Trump nominees into political theater and circuses, Blumenthal—who lied about serving in Vietnam—claimed that Flowers’ answers sounded “rehearsed.”
“Above all, a federal judge must be independent, without fear or favor, and your fear, apparently, of Donald Trump, is so much that you practiced with the White House before you came here and rehearsed this answer, and are repeating by rote what you’ve been told to say,” Blumenthal said, calling that conduct disqualifying – as though he was ever going to support Flowers to begin with.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, defended Flowers against the criticism, arguing that Democrats were applying a double standard.
Grassley pointed to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing, during which she said, “It would be inappropriate for me to publicly weigh in to any subject of political debate.”
In addition, speaking of disqualifying, Jackson refused on several occasions to define a woman.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also cited the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, arguing that the same ethical standards apply to both judicial nominees and sitting judges.
A graduate of Ohio State University and the University of Chicago Law School, Flowers clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge Sandra Ikuta before serving as a law clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia.
He later spent several years at Jones Day and, as Ohio’s 10th solicitor general, argued three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including the successful challenge to OSHA’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
“Flowers resembles most of Trump 2.0’s appellate nominees, whom Mike Davis, the Leader of the Article 3 Project and a Trump judicial selection consigliere, characterizes as battle-hardened,” University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias told Cleveland.com.
“However, Flowers also resembles many Trump 1.0 appellate nominees, who are ideologically conservative, active members of the Federalist Society, and practiced at large national firms,” he added.
During his tenure as Ohio's 10th Solicitor General, Flowers established significant constitutional credentials, arguing three separate cases before the U.S. Supreme Court—most notably securing the landmark legal block that dismantled the federal OSHA emergency temporary standard regarding workplace vaccine mandates.
Legal observers note that Flowers represents the primary archetype of the administration's updated appellate strategy, which favors younger, ideologically consistent lawyers possessing extensive experience handling high-threshold state-level defense challenges.
REPRODUCTIVE STATUTES AND MIDTERM ENFORCEMENT NETWORKS
Beyond national electoral issues, opposition caucuses extensively cross-examined Flowers regarding his historical defense of Ohio public health and abortion regulations. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) directed intense focus toward Flowers' representation of the state's six-week gestational limits, referencing prominent regional cases to challenge his judicial temperament.
Flowers maintained a strict professional baseline throughout the interrogation, noting that any child or victim of assault suffers profound, irreparable harm, while underscoring that his statutory duty as solicitor general was to defend current state laws as enacted by the legislature.
With the Senate majority continuing its rapid tempo to process judicial confirmations ahead of the upcoming autumn midterm campaigns, the successful seating of Benjamin Flowers cews a critical operational vacancy—ensuring that the jurisprudence governing labor, commerce, and individual liberty across four major states remains firmly anchored in a strict interpretation of the Constitution.
Trump Admin Says It Uncovered $10 Billion Obamacare Fraud Scheme
The Trump administration says it has uncovered what it describes as a massive fraud scheme within the Affordable Care Act.
Members of Trump’s administration allege that roughly $10 billion in taxpayer money was improperly paid out between 2021 and 2024 because of weakened enrollment safeguards under former President Joe Biden.
According to a Department of Health and Human Services report, officials have already removed nearly three million fraudulent or improper Obamacare enrollments and estimate another 2.6 million questionable enrollments remain.
Administration officials say the findings are part of a broader government-wide effort to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse across federal programs.
The report traces the alleged problems to changes made during the Biden administration that expanded enrollment opportunities while relaxing income verification and eligibility checks.
At the start of Biden’s presidency, approximately 10 million people were enrolled through the Affordable Care Act exchanges. By 2024, enrollment had surged to roughly 22 million.
Federal investigators now believe millions of those enrollments were improper, fraudulent, or created without the knowledge of the individuals involved.
“By our estimate, improper, phantom, and fraudulent enrollment peaked at 5.6 million people in 2025,” the report states.
“We estimate 2.6 million improper and phantom enrollments remain, including over 1 million enrollments without a Social Security number.”
According to the report, several different forms of abuse contributed to the alleged fraud.
Officials say some applicants intentionally understated their income to qualify for larger taxpayer-funded subsidies.
Others allegedly received premium assistance despite failing to meet eligibility requirements.
Investigators also identified what they describe as “phantom enrollments,” in which insurance brokers allegedly enrolled people in Obamacare plans without their knowledge to collect federal commissions.
The report argues that reduced verification requirements made those practices significantly easier to carry out.
Since taking office, the Trump administration says it has restored stricter income verification requirements, ended several special enrollment periods, increased screening for duplicate Medicaid enrollment, and launched investigations into brokers suspected of creating phantom policies.
Officials also say they have strengthened oversight of agents participating in the federal marketplace.
As a result of those efforts, nearly three million enrollments have already been removed from the Affordable Care Act exchanges.
Even after those removals, approximately 19.2 million people remain enrolled.
The administration says its goal is not to reduce legitimate coverage but to ensure taxpayer dollars are being spent only on individuals who actually qualify.
“Preserving the fiscal and programmatic integrity of the ACA Exchanges is key to safeguarding taxpayer-funded resources for those that truly need them,” the report states.
“The federal government paying brokers to enroll individuals without their knowledge is not.”
The report also says the administration will continue pursuing additional enforcement actions against brokers and others accused of exploiting the program.
“The Trump Administration continues to aggressively root out fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption by promulgating new regulations to improve program integrity, investigating suspected improper or fraudulent enrollment, and taking action against agents and brokers committing fraud.”
The findings are likely to reignite debate over the Affordable Care Act and how aggressively eligibility rules should be enforced.
Supporters of the administration argue the report demonstrates that stricter oversight is necessary to protect taxpayers and preserve benefits for those legally entitled to receive them.
Critics of previous verification rollbacks have long warned that loosening enrollment safeguards could increase improper payments and fraud, while supporters of the Biden-era policies argued the changes made healthcare more accessible to eligible Americans, Fox News reported exclusively.
The administration says its investigations remain ongoing, with an estimated 2.6 million additional enrollments still under review as officials continue auditing the federal health insurance exchanges.
Trump has been pushing to replace Obamacare for over a decade, and this may give Republicans enough motivation to actually do something.
