Published on Media Matters
able news outlets MSNBC and CNN have largely let Fox News shape the narrative around President Donald Trump’s most recent anti-LGBTQ judicial nominee, Lawrence VanDyke. Fox has covered the nomination more than twice as much as major broadcast and cable TV news networks combined and whitewashed his extreme record.
VanDyke is a deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice and former solicitor general for both Montana and Nevada, and he was nominated for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on September 20. In advance of his hearing, the American Bar Association (ABA) issued a rare “Not Qualified” rating, in part due to his anti-LGBTQ viewpoints.
VanDyke has been identified as an allied attorney with extreme anti-LGBTQ group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), and he has attacked the rights of LGBTQ people throughout his legal career. His nomination advanced through the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party line vote on November 21 and will receive a final Senate vote on December 11.