President Donald Trump is poised to select Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court, according to Republican Party sources.
In the wake of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death last week from pancreatic cancer, the president quickly announced that he would name her successor. CNN reported Friday that high-level Republican sources have revealed that Barrett will be publicly announced by Trump on Saturday.
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“The machinery is in motion,” one of the sources said.
Barrett, a federal appellate judge and Notre Dame law professor, has met with Trump twice this week. The White House declined to comment on the speculation but Barrett is a devout Catholic and has hard conservative leanings.
The mother of seven was once a law clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia who was a conservative bedrock on the High Court. Trump previously chose Barrett to serve on the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals.
“She was the plan all along. She’s the most distinguished and qualified by traditional measures. She has the strongest support among the legal conservatives who have dedicated their lives to the court. She will contribute most to the court’s jurisprudence in the years and decades to come,” according to a former senior administration official familiar with the process.
Read More: Crowd chants ‘vote him out’, boos Trump at court viewing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg casket
As theGrio reported, the death of Ginsburg has placed the issue of Roe v. Wade on the ballot.
“Amy Coney Barrett meets Donald Trump’s two main litmus tests: She has made clear she would invalidate the A.C.A. and take health care away from millions of people and undermine a woman’s reproductive freedom,” said Nan Aron, the president of Alliance for Justice, a liberal group, to The New York Times.
Ginsburg stated in her dying days that she wished for her successor to be named after the next presidential election. In 2016, the Senate refused to let then-President Obama appoint a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia who died with over 200 days remaining to the next election.
With just 39 days to the election from today, Trump has cast doubt Ginsberg actually made the remark and is moving forward with his choice. If Barrett is confirmed, there will be a 6-3 conservative majority on the High Court.
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