Lyndon B. Johnson judicial appointment controversies
In 1965, Johnson nominated his friend, high-profile Washington, D.C. lawyer Abe Fortas, to the Supreme Court, and he was confirmed by the United States Senate.Ultimately, Johnson's successor, President Richard Nixon, appointed Warren E. Burger as Chief Justice of the United States.However, I did not have any understanding with the President directly and no one including Attorney General Mitchell as far as I was concerned had any discretion to agree to a deal that those nominations having been made would be approved by me.[2] In 1964, Johnson considered nominating either noted civil rights lawyer Bernard Segal or William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr. to fill a vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that had been created by the death of Herbert Funk Goodrich.[1] In 1968, Johnson had wanted to nominate liberal Republican Sen. Thomas Kuchel to a newly created seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after he lost re-election in his party's primary that year.