“Transactional”=quid pro quo
A Florida state judge was lobbying for a seat on the federal bench. After he sided with the president in a defamation case, Donald Trump gave him one.
Ed Artau, now a nominee to be a district court judge in Florida, met with staff in the office of Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott to angle for the nomination less than two weeks after Trump’s election last fall, according to a new Senate disclosure obtained by POLITICO. In the midst of his interviews, Artau was part of a panel of judges that ruled in Trump’s favor in the president’s case against members of the Pulitzer Prize Board.
About two weeks after the court published his opinion — which called for the overturning of a landmark Supreme Court case that made it harder for public officials to sue journalists — he interviewed with the White House Counsel’s Office. In May, Trump announced his nomination to the federal judiciary.
There is no way Trump didn’t know and that this deal wasn’t explicit. I’d be surprised if a little cash wasn’t involved as well.