Trump thrusts Barrett into election turmoil
WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump’s stark expectation that the Supreme Court will intervene to “look at the ballots” in what he calls a rigged election casts new questions Wednesday on the Senate’s rush to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the vacant seat before Nov. 3.
Barrett was on Capitol Hill for a second day meeting with senators ahead of confirmation hearings as lawmakers of both parties brace for the potential of delayed election night results or a disputed presidential election that lands before the high court.
Rather than lead Americans to up hold voting traditions, Trump is sowing seeds of doubt by insisting throughout the first presidential debate with Joe Biden that the election will be fraudulent if he is not re- elected, even though voter fraud is rare in the United States. One analysis found Americans were more likely to be struck by lightning.
“I’m counting on them to look at the ballots, definitely,” Trump said about the Supreme Court.
The rush by Trump to fill the Supreme Court seat is already drawing fierce objections from Democrats, the first time in U.S. history a nominee will be voted on so close to a presidential election, with early voting already underway in half the states.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said the reason for the quick confirmation of Trump’s nominee is clear: “He wants that 9th person to be his nominee. That’s what we face.”
At a campaign stop Wednesday in Ohio, Biden said it was “interesting” that the Senate found time for a hearing on the Supreme Court nomination but “no time” to work on additional legislation to help Americans during the COVID-19 crisis.
Biden says the winner of the presidency should choose the nominee to fill the vacancy for the seat held by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died at 87 and was buried this week at Arlington National Cemetery.
But without the votes to stop her confirmation, Democrats want Barrett to recuse herself from election cases. Veteran GOP election lawyer Ben Ginsberg said the president’s comment linking his nominee “to his own personal election puts Republican senators in an uncomfortable position.”
A conservative judge on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, Barrett is giving no indication she would sit out election cases that come before the court, as some Democrats want.
Instead, she said she would recuse herself in cases in which her husband and sister, both practicing attorneys, had participated, as well as cases involving her alma mater Notre Dame University, according to filings to the Senate Judiciary Committee ahead of her confirmation hearings.