Justice Amy Coney Barrett And Trump’s Place In History

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The American Conservative

Justice Amy Coney Barrett And Trump’s Place In History

The 45th president has now anointed more Supreme Court justices than either of his four predecessors.

OCTOBER 27, 2020-9:30 AM-CURT MILLS

By the time Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in as an associate justice of the Supreme Court on Monday, a popular reading of history had taken hold. 

Mitch McConnell, the wily Senate majority leader, had played hardball. Democrats contended that he had filched the Court seat vacated by the death of Antonin Scalia in 2016. President Barack Obama, then the incumbent, had nominated a committed and revered moderate, Merrick Garland of the D.C. Circuit Court. 

And by refusing to even hold hearings on Judge Garland, McConnell committed a political crime of the highest order, only compounded further this year by his lightning-speed confirmation of Barrett. Republicans had refused to hold hearings in an election year when it suited them, and it had suited them just fine as the days of the Trump presidency appeared to be drawing to a close.

But that, of course, is not how McConnell and company see it. Defenders of recent tactics point out that it was McConnell’s Democratic predecessor, Harry Reid, who sanded down the power of the filibuster —