money One of Trump's choices for SCOTUS volunteered for Biden's 1987 presidential campaign
One of US president Donald Trump’s candidates to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the US Supreme Court volunteered for Democratic nominee Joe Biden during his 1987 presidential bid.
During an interview with Fox News on Monday, Mr Trump said he had five female candidates in line to replace Ginsburg, who died from pancreatic cancer on Friday evening.
The president said that one of the women on the list is “a great one from Michigan,” which a Trump administration official told CNN is Judge Joan Larsen.
Mr Trump appointed Ms Larsen to the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals in May 2017 and had her vetted by his administration when she was considered for the vacant Supreme Court seat that was filled by Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.
During the Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire that she filled in as part of the process of her appointment, she wrote that she volunteered for Mr Biden during his last presidential campaign.
She wrote that she “did some low-level volunteer work (stuffing envelopes, making phones calls) for the Biden campaign in Iowa in 1987.”
Mr Biden was unsuccessful in his bid to become the 1988 Democratic nominee, as he suspended his campaign in 1987, before former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis won the nomination.
The 2020 Democratic presidential nominee has gone one step further in the process this year however, and is currently leading Mr Trump in the polls, with just weeks to go before 3 November’s election.
However, Ms Larsen appears to have conservative leanings, as she served in George W Bush’s administration at the Department of Justice, and worked as a clerk to former conservative justice Antonin Scalia, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1986 by then Republican president Ronald Reagan.
Ms Larsen is also a member of the Federalist Society, which describes itself as a “group of conservatives and libertarians,” that aims to reorder “priorities within the legal system to place a premium on individual liberty, traditional values, and the rule of law.”
The decision surrounding the timeline of the nomination of a new Supreme Court justice is causing controversy, with Democratic officials calling for it to wait until after 3 November’s election.
A place on the court is a lifetime position and if a justice is appointed by Mr Trump, it would likely give it a Conservative super majority that could stand for decades.
On Friday evening, Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, said that the nomination should wait until after the election, following a tribute to Ms Ginsburg.
He said: “There is no doubt, let me be clear, that the voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider.”
However, at a rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Saturday night the president confirmed that he will nominate Ms Ginsburg’s replacement while he is in office, because he feels he has an “obligation” to.
He added: “It will be a woman. A very talented, very brilliant woman, who I haven't chosen yet, but we have numerous women on the list.”
Mr Trump confirmed on Tuesday that he will name his nomination to replace Ms Ginsburg on Saturday 26 September.
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