Republican Senator Orrin Hatch dropped a potentially major clue in an op-ed on Friday about who President Donald Trump is going to nominate to the United States Supreme Court, just a few days before the president is set to announce his pick.
Hatch’s op-ed, featured in the Deseret News, referred to the Supreme Court nominee using the pronouns “her” and “she,” which is significant because there is thought to be only one female candidate that is a finalist for the position: Amy Coney Barrett.
Hatch wrote:
Just as he did with Neil Gorsuch, the president has promised to nominate an impartial judge, a wise and seasoned jurist committed to upholding the Constitution at all costs. But no matter the nominee’s background or credentials, progressives will do everything they can to paint her as a closet partisan, if not an outright extremist. …
… I will devote all my energies to ensuring that we confirm the kind of Supreme Court justice America needs: a justice who says what the law is, not what she wants it to be; a justice who calls balls and strikes instead of swinging for the fences; a justice whose foremost allegiance is to the American people and to the Constitution.
It’s not clear whether Hatch knows who the nominee is or if he is simply hoping to persuade the president with his op-ed.
Trump had announced on June 30 that he planned to announce his pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy but there is a chance that the pick could be announced sooner as the president tweeted on Saturday that the decision will be made “soon.”
Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro wrote the following about 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.
