Sen. John Cornyn is a personal acquaintance of Don Willett, one of the people on Donald Trump's list of potential Supreme Court nominees: Both men share the distinction of having served on Texas’ highest court. Another Trump favorite, Thomas Lee, is the brother of Utah Sen. Mike Lee. Colorado Supreme Court Justice Allison Eid was once Sen. Cory Gardner’s law professor.

And Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley was so pleased with an Iowa judge included on Trump’s list that the senator said he would’ve personally recommended Steven Colloton to a future president considering a high court justice.


In selecting names for his list of potential Supreme Court picks, Trump seemed to make direct appeals to Senate Republicans by choosing their associates and even relatives, along with jurists who have long been household names among conservatives.

Willett – a colorful and prolific Twitter user who now serves on the Texas Supreme Court – knows Cornyn well, the No. 2 Senate Republican said on Thursday. The two men didn’t serve at the same time, but Cornyn called him a “good man” and “kind of a unique guy.”

“I know Judge Willett’s judicial philosophy is one of interpreting the law as written and the Constitution, and not, sort of, making it up as you go along,” said Cornyn, who also sits on the Judiciary Committee. Noting the concern from other Republicans about whom a President Trump would choose, Cornyn added: “That’s why I thought this was a smart move, in reassuring (the party).”

Most Republican senators still can’t bring themselves to fully embrace Trump as their presidential standard-bearer. But his long list of potential nominees to the Supreme Court is already going a long way in assuaging their concerns, GOP senators said after the presumptive Republican nominee’s unorthodox move to name 11 judges he’d consider for the nation's most powerful court.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who has pointedly refused to endorse Trump, said the list of potential justices was a “very good step in the right direction." Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump’s harshest critics, said the presumptive nominee has provided a “good, solid list.”

Lee, the Utah senator, endorsed Trump rival Ted Cruz and said last week that the billionaire business mogul “scares me to death.” But Lee found nothing to knock about Trump’s Supreme Court list, considering his older brother — who serves on the Utah Supreme Court and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — was among the judges Trump named.

"I don't know everyone on the list, but those I do know would all be great Supreme Court justices,” Mike Lee said in an e-mailed statement. “Of course I do believe one name on that list stands head and shoulders above the rest."

Utah’s other senator, Republican Orrin Hatch, is also a fan of Trump’s pick from his home state.

“He’s a very bright guy,” Hatch said of Thomas Lee. “He would be excellent, if they could get him there.”

Nearly all Senate Republicans have joined together for more than two months to block President Barack Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland. If Trump wins, they can now rest assured that their controversial blockade is likely to pay off with a much more conservative nominee.

All 11 people listed by Trump are considered solid conservative jurists, with five of them having clerked for Supreme Court justices revered by the right and six having been appointed to the federal judiciary by President George W. Bush. Trump also picked generously from a list of suggested justices put together by the conservative Heritage Foundation, and many names have ties to The Federalist Society.

But it’s the personal connections on Trump’s list that stand out.

Eid, a former clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas who serves on the Colorado Supreme Court, was Gardner’s law professor when the now-senator attended the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“The ones I’ve seen were pretty well thought,” Gardner said. “I’d be very curious to see Hillary Clinton’s list. And I think the American people would be scared out of their mind by Hillary Clinton’s list.”

Grassley, the Judiciary Committee chairman who would likely wield considerable influence over Supreme Court nominees if a Republican were in the White House, recalled that he personally recommended Colloton to Bush for the judge’s current position on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Judiciary chairman said he wasn’t consulted by the Trump campaign on the names, but it appeared the Iowa senator and the presumptive GOP nominee were of one mind at least on this matter.

“He clerked for Chief Justice [William] Rehnquist. That ought to tell you something about him,” Grassley said of Colloton. “If we have a Republican president, and if there hadn’t been a list out like this, I would’ve been suggesting him to be considered by the next president.”

Other judges listed by Trump include: Raymond Gruender of Missouri, Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania, Raymond Kethledge of Michigan, Joan Larsen of Michigan, William Pryor of Alabama, David Stras of Minnesota and Diane Sykes of Wisconsin. Sykes is the ex-wife of conservative radio host Charlie Sykes, a known Trump critic.

Trump’s decision to release a menu of potential Supreme Court justices — a highly unusual move for a presidential candidate — had been telegraphed for some time. When the businessman met with a handful of lawmakers in March, he pledged shortly after that he would draw up a list of justices he would choose when Supreme Court vacancies arise.

Conservatives, particularly the influential anti-abortion movement, have been skeptical of Trump on the hot-button issue of the Supreme Court, considering the nominee had a history of vacillating on key topics over the course of his campaign.

But Trump seems to have calmed those worries somewhat. When asked whether the list would go a long way in assuaging concerns about Trump’s capacity to pick justices acceptable to Republicans, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Trump’s first endorser in the Senate, responded: “Huge.”

“I’ve heard nothing but positive about this,” Sessions said of Trump’s names. “People in the Senate say this is going to relieve a lot of people. They were hearing a lot of concerns that he may not appoint sound jurists.”

Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) doesn’t know any of Trump’s picks personally. But as a member of the Judiciary Committee, he is likely to play an outsized role in future Supreme Court nominations. He said he was beginning to research the backgrounds of all of Trump’s potential nominees, but called them “viable candidates” for a seat on the nation’s high court.

“They ought to see this as this candidate bending over backwards to do something that is pretty unusual,” Perdue said of conservative critics of Trump. “They should see this as an attempt to ameliorate their concerns.”

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.