CBS News is reporting this morning that Trump did not interview any potential nominees for the high court over the weekend, as had been suggested.
However somehow they report this morning they know the two leading candidates for Trump’s high court pick and here they are below:
I’m not sure how they know this, especially since Trump hasn’t actually interviewed anyone yet – at least by the time of this reporting. The interviews, they say, begin in earnest today.
In any event, here’s what Ben Shapiro had to say about both Kavanaugh and Barrett just a few days ago:
Brett Kavanaugh:
Kavanaugh is a former clerk for Justice Kennedy. He was elevated to the federal bench in 2006, after a three-year delay. His nomination was delayed thanks to Democratic upset over the fact that Kavanaugh worked for Kenneth Starr in the office of the Solicitor General, and had the temerity to say that the Clinton administration targeted Starr. Kavanaugh has been on the court for quite a while, and has a long record — he’s authored nearly 300 decisions. He recently dissented when the circuit decided that a 17-year-old illegal immigrant detainee had a right to an abortion (he explained that the decision was “based on a constitutional principle as novel as it is wrong”), and held in 2011 that the Washington, D.C. ban on semi-automatic rifles and its gun registration requirement were unconstitutional under Heller. He also held that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau structure was unconstitutional. Kavanaugh has been a strong critic of Chevron deference to administrative agencies (although his Chevron strategy has been less straightforward, according to some, than that of Justice Gorsuch). Kavanaugh has stated that his judicial philosophy is textualist, although some commentators suggest that his textualism is not as strong as Gorsuch’s [NOTE: These sentences have been corrected; the original version was inaccurate.] Kavanaugh, like Chief Justice Roberts, is known for working across the aisle. On the other side of the ledger, critics suggest (correctly in my view) that Kavanaugh upheld Obamacare in Sissel v. Department of Health and Human Services as well as in Seven-Sky v. Holder, in which he stated that the Obamacare penalties were actually “taxes.” Critics have also pointed to his opinion in a case regarding whether the government could compel priests to cover birth control under Obamacare; in that dissent, he held that there was a compelling government interest in providing birth control, but that the government could find less restrictive means of doing so.
Amy Barrett:
Amy Barrett. Barrett’s nomination to the 7th Circuit became a cause celebre when Democrats began suggesting that her Catholicism was a bar to her ability to be an objective judge. She believes that life begins at conception, and signed a letter from the Becket Fund criticizing Obamacare’s requirement that employers provide contraceptive coverage, calling it a “grave violation of religious freedom.” Barrett has written in great depth on Justice Scalia’s originalism; she’s evidenced support for textualism as well. She clerked for Scalia.
I hate to make this about gender but I suspect that since Trump has already nominated a man (Gorsuch) to the high court, he’ll pick a female next, which means it will probably be Amy Barrett. I say that because Trump prides himself on being an ‘equal opportunity’ employer and when it comes to the court, given that credentials are all good, Trump will err on the side of picking a woman. I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t.