Kevin Newsom (Alison Church/Freelance)

Just 10 days after President Donald Trump was inaugurated, Sen. Richard Shelby’s chief of staff placed a call to Kevin Newsom, Alabama’s former solicitor general, to arrange a visit to discuss a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

The next day, Newsom flew to Washington to meet with Shelby and his fellow Republican senator from Alabama, Jeff Sessions, then on track to become U.S. attorney general, Newsom recalled in a 43-page questionnaire he has submitted to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. In less than a week, the senators told Newsom they had sent his name to the White House in recommendation for the vacant post.