If you think it doesn’t matter which president appoints federal judges, why did you retire strategically?

Commenter Joe made a great point about Thomas Griffith, who co-wrote a deeply silly op-ed asserting that Article III judges “do not identify with political parties or the president who appointed them.” I think this is a case where you want to judge someone by their actions rather than by their words:

Judge Thomas B. Griffith will retire from his seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in the fall, giving President Donald Trump another appeals court vacancy to fill.

Griffith is a 15-year veteran of the D.C.-based circuit and an appointee of President George W. Bush. His retirement became public through a page Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts website listing future vacancies.

The judge made news last month when he authored the majority opinion in a case holding that House Democrats could not use the courts to compel the testimony of former White House Counsel Don McGahn.

Griffith was only 66 when he handed his D.C. Circuit seat to Donald Trump. The chances he would have retired if Hillary Clinton was in the White House are identical to Urban Meyer’s chances of getting a Super Bowl ring this year.

And it’s not like it’s some secret — Mitch McConnell is completely open about it:

Running out of federal court vacancies to fill, Senate Republicans have been quietly making overtures to sitting Republican-nominated judges who are eligible to retire to urge them to step aside so they can be replaced while the party still holds the Senate and the White House.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, who has used his position as majority leader to build a judicial confirmation juggernaut for President Trump over the past three years, has been personally reaching out to judges to sound them out on their plans and assure them that they would have a worthy successor if they gave up their seats soon, according to multiple people with knowledge of his actions.

It was not known how many judges were contacted or which of them Mr. McConnell had spoken to directly. One of his Republican colleagues said others had also initiated outreach in an effort to heighten awareness among judges nominated by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush and George W. Bush that making the change now would be advantageous.

The overt effort by Republicans to create vacancies reflects a realization that Mr. Trump could lose the presidency, or that Republicans could lose the Senate majority and deprive Mr. Trump of his partner on judicial confirmations even if he did gain a second term.

For that matter Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer didn’t refuse to retire strategically because they actually believe any of this bullshit about judges being apolitical — cf. the former’s deathbed message — but because they really liked doing the job and just hoped things would work out somehow, like they did for Bill Rehnquist. But there’s always a market for op-eds making arguments everyone knows to be false, for reasons Mark Tushnet explained in the wake of Bush v. Gore.