President Donald Trump already placed three conservative justices on the Supreme Court during his first term. A liberal group is warning he could replace two of the other three conservatives with his own loyalists — and they’re not waiting for it to happen.
While none of the nine justices have announced plans to retire, two conservatives — Justice Clarence Thomas (77) and Justice Samuel Alito (76) — could conceivably retire before Trump leaves office.
Demand Justice says they aren’t waiting, they’re preparing.
“The preparations come at a moment when Democrats are feeling optimistic about their ability to break Republican control of Congress, and when there is growing fear in some corners of the party that Mr. Trump will seek to install loyalist justices who could sit on the court for decades,” The New York Times reports.
Josh Orton, the president of Demand Justice, told the Times: “If you think that Trump is willing to leave two of the three justices he thinks are most loyal on the court in their 80s past when he leaves office, you are not paying attention.”
He says there is “no way” Trump, Thomas, and Alito “would ever commit the fundamental miscalculation about power that we saw from Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Barack Obama and we as a movement.”
Justice Ginsburg, who was 87, passed away during Trump’s first term, after a battle with cancer. Some on the left expressed frustration that she did not retire when Obama was president. Trump replaced her with Justice Amy Coney Barrett, moving the court to a strong 6-3 conservative majority.
“If Trump is handed another Supreme Court vacancy, we must be cleareyed and ready to make it an uphill battle,” Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible that is partnering in the Demand Justice effort, told the Times. “This will be a defining political battle, and we intend to make sure the stakes are clear to everyone.”
Orton says Trump will want to install a loyalist to replace any retiring justice.
“He’s going to want someone he knows, someone who has given him advice that he trusts. Someone that knows him personally and he feels understands him and that he can call for years to come personally to his aid.”