Article snippet: Although Sen. Flake has long been at odds with conservative Republicans, on Wednesday he crossed a new line by following through on a threat to vote against all judicial nominees. One of President Donald Trump’s greatest successes has been an impressive array of exceptionally well-qualified nominees for judgeships, and many thought that, for all of his rhetoric, Flake would not vote against judges with stellar credentials, unblemished character, and a commitment to interpreting the Constitution according to its original public meaning. Flake had threatened to torpedo judges unless Congress voted on legislation to prevent the firing of Special Counsel Mueller. Many legal scholars now agree that such legislation is unconstitutional for the reasons Justice Antonin Scalia explained in his famous dissent in Morrison v. Olson (1988), with liberal Justice Elena Kagan saying that Scalia’s dissent “gets better every time you read it.” Restricting a president’s ability to fire a federal prosecutor violates the Executive Vesting Clause of Article II of the Constitution, which gives the president all law enforcement power in the federal government. However, Flake threatened that unless lawmakers voted on such legislation, he would henceforth vote against all judicial nominees. Apparently he was serious. In fact, Flake voted on Wednesday to filibuster a conservative nominee already on the Senate floor, Thomas Farr, who is nominated to be a federal district judge in North Caro... Link to the full article to read more