Trump’s Potential Supreme Court Nominees

On Friday, Sept. 18, 2020, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died from complications from cancer. As Americans mourned her passing, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated that he would move forward with filling her seat before Election Day, despite the blatant (if not surprising) hypocrisy of such a decision.

When President Donald Trump announced his intention of nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett, whom he had nominated in 2017 to the Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, American Oversight had already filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Justice relating to her nomination to either the 7th Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trump’s reported list of potential nominees included federal judges who had been appointed to their current seats by the president, such as Neomi Rao, Britt Grant, and Amul Thapar; far-right politicians like Sens. Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton; and conservative lawyers who previously worked in government, including former solicitor general Noel Francisco.