Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is retiring.
He even went to the White House today to tell Donald Trump about it.
In 2016, President Obama nominated an eminent jurist, Judge Merrick Garland, to succeed hard-right ideologue Justice Antonin Scalia.
Judge Garland is the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Nominations to SCOTUS are frequently made from judges of that Court.
Because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is a classic, down and dirty, no holds-barred obstructionist, he refused to schedule even a hearing on Judge Garland’s nomination, because the nomination was made during the last year of President Obama’s presidency.
McConnell got his way, and then he changed the Senate rules to make it very easy to confirm Trump’s nomination of reliably conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch.
We are very dubious as to whether Trump believes in the rule of law.
In previous posts, we have made comments about probable nominations to SCOTUS, from Trump.
On April 10, we said it might well be Trump’s personal attorney (he has many of them) Michael Cohen (https://www.apocryphalpress.com/2018/04/10/trump-appoints-his-pit-bull-lawyer-michael-cohen-to-the-supreme-court/).
And on May 11, we reported that Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who was conspicuously urging Supreme Court Justices to retire quick quick, wanted Trump to appoint him to the Court (https://www.apocryphalpress.com/2018/05/11/grassley-to-trump-put-me-on-the-supreme-court-trump-wants-kelly-sadler-at-state-lapierre-is-ecstatic/).
Moments ago, associate solitary reporter Johanna Jones was with Trump as he called his current pit bull lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, in.
“Rudy, I’m putting you on the Supreme Court.”
“I was thinking of Chris Christie, but he’s way too fat.”
“Rudy, whenever you get ready to make a decision, just call me, and I’ll tell you what to do.”
Giuliani genuflected.
Associate solitary reporter Melissa Smith was with McConnell and Grassley as they scheduled the confirmation hearing for Giuliani for tomorrow morning, with a vote in the full Senate on Monday.