WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump is expected to name Amy Coney Barrett of Indiana as his nominee to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, sources told McClatchy.
Trump has been telling senators directly that Barrett is his choice, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that Barrett would be the nominee earlier this week, according to two sources familiar with the discussions. Another source familiar with the vetting process said that Trump had selected Barrett.
Trump has said he will announce his pick on Saturday at the White House, formally setting the stage for a battle over the high court less than six weeks from Election Day.
Barrett, 48, an appellate court judge, would bring established conservative credentials to the bench and be the youngest of the current Supreme Court justices, replacing Ginsburg, who anchored the liberal wing of the court.
Trump interviewed Barrett once before for a Supreme Court seat after the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018, when he ultimately nominated Brett Kavanaugh.
But this time _ after Trump decided early in his weeklong search to replace Ginsburg, a pioneer for women's rights, with another female justice _ Barrett became an instant favorite among conservative groups lobbying the White House.
They sought a justice they would consider a reliable vote on social issues such as abortion and gun rights. Her devout Catholicism has endeared her to conservatives, including anti-abortion activists, as much as it has drawn skepticism from liberals.
Having sat as a judge for only three years, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, Barrett's thin judicial record offers senators and outside groups few of the written court opinions that often help them determine how a nominee will perform as a Supreme Court justice.
She has, on the one hand, called for a "flexible" approach to upholding Supreme Court precedent, and on the other said in her 2017 confirmation hearing that Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that legalized abortion, had "been affirmed many times and survived many challenges in the court."
"I will follow all Supreme Court precedent without fail," she said at the time.
Barrett has also written that lawmakers may not be constitutionally empowered to prevent convicted felons from owning guns, expressed approval of Trump's authority to restrict immigration and signaled opposition to loosened abortion restrictions.
She has criticized Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts for his past ruling that upheld the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, saying he pushed interpretation of the law "beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute."
Barrett's teaching career at Notre Dame Law School and her time as a clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, an icon on the right, have also built her reputation as a reliable conservative.
Speaking to law graduates at Notre Dame, Barrett said that a "legal career is but a means to an end ... and that end is building the Kingdom of God," a fellow professor quoted her at the time.
In a 1998 paper, Barrett wrote that Catholic judges may be justified in recusing themselves from cases that conflict with their religious principles.
"They will want to sit whenever they can without acting immorally. So they need to know what the church teaches, and its effect on them," Barrett wrote. "On the other hand litigants and the general public are entitled to impartial justice, and that may be something that a judge who is heedful of ecclesiastical pronouncements cannot dispense. We need to know whether judges are sometimes legally disqualified from hearing cases that their consciences would let them decide."
Since her appointment to the 7th Circuit, Scalia's judicial philosophy has also become a model for Barrett.
"He was the smartest in the room, he was also the funniest _ he was a great mentor," Barrett said upon Scalia's death.
During her three years in private practice with the law firm Baker Botts, Barrett worked on the ground in Florida for the team representing George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore, the case that would ultimately reach the Supreme Court and decide the 2000 presidential election.
She is expected to easily secure the support of right-leaning groups that see in her the potential to enshrine a conservative majority of Supreme Court justices. If confirmed, she would be Trump's third appointment to the Supreme Court, after Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.
But she continues to face questions from liberals over the influence of her faith on her legal career.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, faced blowback in 2017 after telling Barrett at her confirmation hearing, "dogma lives loudly in you." Faith-based groups accused the California senator of placing an unconstitutional religious test on Barrett's nomination.
Similar questions around Barrett's faith-based views surrounded Trump's search process. But allies of the president say he may welcome attacks from Democrats on a conservative candidate so public about her religion.
"Judge Barrett is an extraordinary jurist," Vice President Mike Pence, who is also from Indiana, said in a recent interview with ABC News.
Asked to respond to Barrett's reported affiliation with People of Praise, a group that describes itself as a charismatic Christian community, Pence replied, "I must tell you, the intolerance expressed during her last confirmation hearings about her Catholic faith _ I really think was a disservice to the process, and a disappointment to millions of Americans."
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump's former White House press secretary who remains in close contact with the president, wrote Thursday on Twitter that questioning Barrett's faith "is an attack on every follower of Christ."
"Christians need to wake up � there's a battle going on and it's time to pick a side because our faith and freedom and everything we love about America depends on us winning it," Sanders said.
That clash may be a preview of the heated confirmation battle to come, as Democrats seek to block her ascension to the high court.
But they are unlikely to succeed. Trump has enough votes among Senate Republicans to proceed with hearings and a confirmation vote before the Nov. 3 election, after two Republican senators who were viewed as being on the fence about moving forward before the election � Mitt Romney of Utah and Cory Gardner of Colorado � announced their support this week.
Senate Republicans have faced accusations of hypocrisy for moving to fill Ginsburg's seat less than two months before the election after they blocked former President Barack Obama's nominee 10 months before the vote in 2016.
Under Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's direction, Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the court after Scalia's death in February 2016 was sidelined, with Republicans citing the proximity to Election Day.
In a 2016 interview with CBS, Barrett said she believed it was appropriate to appoint a Supreme Court justice in an election year, citing historical precedent for doing so when the Senate and the presidency are held by the same party.
But she also recognized the impact that replacing Scalia with an Obama appointee would have on the center of power on the court.
"We're talking about Justice Scalia, the staunchest conservative on the court, and we're talking about him being replaced by someone who could dramatically flip the balance of power on the court," she said. "It's not a lateral move."
In recent days, Trump has told reporters that he wants to replace Ginsburg ahead of the election so that nine justices are seated � including a new, reliable conservative � before the Supreme Court hears any cases related to mail-in voting.
"You're going to need nine justices up there. I think it's going to be very important," Trump said on Tuesday. "Because what they're doing is a hoax, with the ballots. They're sending out tens of millions of ballots, unsolicited � not where they're being asked, but unsolicited. And that's a hoax, and you're going to need to have nine justices. So doing it before the election would be a very good thing."
Nine states and Washington, D.C., automatically mail ballots to registered voters. Independent studies have repeatedly found that voter fraud is extremely rare, including mail-in ballots.
The decision to proceed ahead of the vote ignores Ginsburg's final wish, which she dictated to her granddaughter in the days before her death, NPR reported.
"My most fervent wish," Ginsburg said, "is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."
