Occasionally, a judge’s commission -- the paper signed by a President that names the person appointed to a judgeship -- disappears.
Missing commissions are not a national crisis. Indeed, they do not appear to be a problem at all.
No one is losing their job. As the Supreme Court has said, an appointment is complete when a President signs a commission, not when a judge receives it, and a replacement commission is as valid as an original.
Replacements do get issued. The government has a process that seems to work.
That is the problem: it seems to work. But it is a secret process, so no one knows. This is probably no big deal. But there is an important principle at stake. Government should not keep secrets without good reasons. It is hard to imagine a good reason to keep this secret.