Trump ‘will name Judge Amy Coney Barret as his Supreme Court nominee tomorrow’ after meeting with GOP favorite
PRESIDENT Trump will pick Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Supreme Court, multiple reports say, in a decision that will be announced tomorrow.
The president plans to announce his choice on Saturday and hopes to force the Senate to confirm his pick prior to the November 3 election, according to the New York Times.
However CNN noted there is a possibility that Trump may make a last minute change.
Barrett has been the leading choice following the death of Ginsburg, being the only candidate to have met with the president in person, according to Republican sources.
Trump has previously said Republicans have an “obligation” to choose a new Supreme Court justice “without delay.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a feminist icon and the second woman to ever serve on the nation’s highest court, died on Friday from cancer at the age of 87.
The Supreme Court now has eight justices – three liberal, following Ginsburg’s death, and five conservatives.
The imbalance of the court just six weeks before a historic Election Day is expected to unleash a battle on whether Trump should or shouldn’t nominate her successor so soon.
Trump tweeted on Saturday morning: “We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us, the most important of which has long been considered to be the selection of United States Supreme Court Justices.
“We have this obligation, without delay!”
Trump’s current list of potential justice nominees is said to be “very short”.
In the hours after Ginsburg died at her home in Washington, DC, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Republican-led Senate will vote on Trump’s pick – despite it being an election year.
RBG’s casket ceremony at the US Capitol comes one week after Ginsburg passed away on the night of September 18 from metastatic pancreatic cancer.
She was 87 years old.
It recently emerged officials have shared a 19-point dossier with tactics to delay or halt Donald Trump’s nomination of a Supreme Court judge.
The “Safeguarding the Court” document was released after Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called leaders to “use every tool at our disposal” to stop the president making the call.
“Much of the broad electorate will want to see Congressional Democrats fighting to protect the Court and their Constitutional rights,” the document, that was obtained by the Daily Poster, read.
Most read in News
The document lists 19 ideas on how to slow down or halt the notion and admits there is “reason to believe that not all potential (delay) options have been thoroughly explored.”
One option is slowing down the Senate by holding additional bills, however House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned that move down.
Another option is for the house to impeach the president, however Pelosi told reporters on Thursday that “I don’t think he’s worth the trouble at this point.”