Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation will be 'a win for all Americans': Carrie Severino
President of the judicial crisis network Carrie Severino discusses the senate vote on Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation tonight on ‘Fox & Friends.’
This month the American people got to know a remarkable woman. Judge Amy Coney Barrett sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee for three long days of testimony. She answered questions on everything from the Bill of Rights to the Sherman Antitrust Act to cameras in the courtroom.
She demonstrated an exhaustive, even encyclopedic, knowledge of the law.
Even in the face of hostile and at times unfair questioning from Democratic Senators, Judge Barrett was poised, confident, and courteous. She demonstrated beyond question that she is qualified for, and deserves confirmation to, the Supreme Court.
I served for four decades on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including three separate stints as chairman. I know a thing or two about Supreme Court nominees.
I participated in the confirmation of every Justice from Sandra Day O’Connor in 1981 to Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. And I can say without question that Judge Barrett was as impressive as any nominee I have ever seen. That includes such luminaries as Antonin Scalia, William Rehnquist, and the Justice she has been nominated to replace, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom I recommended to President Bill Clinton as a nominee way back in 1993.
Senate Democrats hit Judge Barrett with everything they had. They asked her over and over again how she would decide questions likely to come before the Court or what she thought about hotly contested legal issues, subjects she could not discuss without violating the canons of judicial ethics.
They distorted her record and cherry-picked quotes from her cases and law review articles in an effort to portray her in the worst light possible.
When she explained why she could not say how she would rule, or offer views on issues likely to be litigated, Senate Democrats expressed faux outrage and misrepresented how prior nominees had answered questions.
Through it all, Judge Barrett remained calm, collected, and devastatingly impressive. More than a few times Democratic Senators came out of exchanges looking the fool. Not because Judge Barrett had been condescending, but because Judge Barrett was so clearly the better, smarter lawyer.
Some of my favorite exchanges occurred when Judge Barrett could clearly see where a Democratic senator was trying to lead her and firmly but politely cut the senator off at the pass. I don’t want to name names, but Vice President Biden might want to make sure a certain running mate isn’t feeling a bit embarrassed by the whole thing.
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Judge Barrett, however, is much more than just an impressive jurist. She is an impressive person.
When she was first nominated to the federal bench back in 2017, every full-time member of Notre Dame’s faculty joined a letter strongly supporting her nomination. They spoke in glowing terms about then-Professor Barrett’s intellect, kindness, and integrity. They wrote about how much her students loved her and how she selflessly shared her time with colleagues and the broader university community. Scores of Judge Barrett’s former students, law clerks, and neighbors have echoed these sentiments.
Regrettably, over the past few weeks, we’ve seen scurrilous attacks on Judge Barrett’s family and life choices. Although deeply disappointing, these attacks are not surprising.
More than 30 years ago, liberals deployed search-and-destroy tactics against Judge Robert Bork, distorting his record and impugning his personal character in a desperate attempt to defeat his nomination—an attempt that unfortunately succeeded.
Liberals continued their scorched-earth campaign against Justice Clarence Thomas and most recently against Justice Brett Kavanaugh, leaking utterly unsubstantiated allegations at the eleventh hour in an effort to derail their nominations and destroy their lives.
Thankfully, those efforts did not succeed.
This time the tactics have been a bit different. Opponents have attacked Judge Barrett’s outlandish decisions to have children, to adopt children, and to participate actively in her religious community. That Judge Barrett may be personally pro-life—just like tens of millions of other Americans—is apparently a scandal, as is the fact that she takes seriously the commitments of her faith.
She’s even been called a “colonist” for adopting two children from Haiti who lost their parents.
Senate Democrats were sufficiently embarrassed by these attacks that they largely confined their hearing strategy to complaints about process and ineffective questions about Judge Barrett’s judicial philosophy.
Although one can never be certain what tricks Senate Democrats may have up their sleeves, Judge Barrett’s masterful performance at her hearing this month has put her on a clear path to confirmation.
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She will be an outstanding Justice and a worthy successor of both Justice Scalia, for whom she clerked, and Justice Ginsburg, whose seat she will fill.
She will interpret the law fairly and faithfully—of that there can be no doubt.
Equally important, she will be an inspiration to millions of Americans.
Judge Barrett demolishes the lie that professionally successful women must act or live a certain way or that active religious faith is a tool of patriarchy and oppression.
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When confirmed, she will have reached the very pinnacle of her profession—a place that only nine Americans occupy at any one time—and she will have done so with her husband, her children, and her faith community by her side every step of the way.
I could not be more pleased that President Trump nominated Judge Barrett for our nation’s highest court. And I could not be more proud that we will soon be able to call Judge Barrett Justice Barrett.
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