Schiff and Bush are two of President Trump’s thus far 21 picks for the nearly 130 vacancies on the federal bench, an excess of open slots that exist mostly because of unprecedented Republican resistance to the confirmation of President Obama’s judicial nominees. Neither Bush nor Schiff will ever singlehandedly wield the power of, say, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, but their nominations indicate the direction in which America’s courts may be headed under Trump. Given the extraordinary power of the courts today—especially as a check on the legislative and executive branches—a judicial branch populated with men like Bush and Schiff could mightily shift the political landscape of the United States, well after Trump has left office.

Both Schiff and Bush arrived at their hearings carrying excess baggage in the form of controversial writing. Bush, a corporate lawyer, had previously blogged under the pseudonym, “G. Morris” on his wife’s site, “Elephants in the Bluegrass.” The site features numerous posts by Bush, the most controversial of which were a comparison of Roe v. Wade to the Dred Scott decision concluding that black people could not be citizens of the United States, and one which contained questionable allegations about then-President Obama’s Kenyan roots. The post cited, by way of a source, World Net Daily — a website that the Southern Poverty Law Center characterizes as “devoted to manipulative fear-mongering and outright fabrications designed to further … paranoid, gay-hating, conspiratorial and apocalyptic visions.”

At his hearing, Bush was asked about his sourcing by Senator Al Franken. He responded, “As a blogger, I was finding things that were in the news of note. I wasn’t intending, through the posts, to say that President Obama was not born in this country.”

Franken pressed on, asking Bush how he deemed which sources were credible—and whether he believed that World Net Daily was a credible source:

Bush: As I said, when I was doing the blog, I made some posts that I today would not do. I don’t particularly recall that one, what went into the decision to use that particular story… Franken: Let me ask you again, how did you decide which sources were credible? And how did you decide that [World Net Daily] was a credible source? Bush: I don’t know whether I decided that or not. I just really cannot remember. Franken: So you felt free to put posts out that cited sources that you knew were not credible? Bush: No Senator, I am not saying that. Franken: What are you saying? Bush: I’m saying that as a blogger, I was making political statements— Franken: —using sources that engaged in fake news, hate speech and again, what I was saying was, when we are confirming judges, we have to look at judgment. And in my mind, using my judgment, to confirm someone to the circuit court who felt free to blog posts and can’t answer how he decides whether to cite a source or not—whether it’s credible or not—that’s disturbing to me.

Bush ran into more problems when he was questioned by Senator Dick Durbin, who followed up on comments Bush had made earlier to Senator Dianne Feinstein, about Roe vs Wade being a tragedy, “in the sense that it divided our country.” Durbin questioned the logic behind this assessment—after all, weren’t some of the court’s most landmark cases divisive ones?