President Trump said that he has narrowed down his list of potential Supreme Court nominees to just five people. Although the president wouldn’t release the names of everyone on his shortlist, he announced that he would reveal his final pick by the end of this week.
One name rumored to be on that list is Judge Amy Coney Barrett from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
According to Senate Judiciary Committee member Mike Lee, Barnett should be President Trump’s choice to fill the seat of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Lee told host Martha MacCallum of “The Story”, “I expect that we are going to see Amy Coney Barrett being picked by the president. I would support that nomination wholeheartedly. She’s got a proven track record. She is someone who understands the difference between judging and lawmaking.”
“She understands that she’s there to interpret the law based on what the words say rather than on the basis of what some social scientist or lawyer might wish that it said,’ he added. “That’s exactly the kind of person we need on the U.S. Supreme Court, and I think it will and should be her.”
MacCallum mentioned that Judge Barbara Lagoa would be meeting with President Trump later this week and asked Lee why he thought Barrett was a better choice.
Lee responded that Barrett “is someone who throughout her entire lifetime has devoted herself to conservative principles, including and especially to principles of textualism and originalism.”
He added, “She served as a law clerk to Justice [Antonin] Scalia and it’s in the mold of Justice Scalia, and Justice [Samuel] Alito and Justice [Clarence] Thomas that we want President Trump to be naming replacements to vacancies that occur within the Supreme Court.”
Lee drove his point home, “Amy Coney Barrett is exactly that kind of nominee. That’s why I hope and expect that it will be her.”
