Hey Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley—was this what you had in mind when you decided that Donald Trump should get to pick the next Supreme Court justice?
Donald Trump has made it clear he will nominate Peter Thiel to the Supreme Court if he wins the presidency, Thiel has told friends, according to a source close to the PayPal co-founder.
Trump "deeply loves Peter Thiel," and people in the real estate mogul's inner circle are talking about Thiel as a Supreme Court nominee, a separate source close to Trump told The Huffington Post. That source, who has not spoken to Trump directly about Thiel being nominated to the Court, cautioned that Trump's offers often fail to materialize in real life.
It's not clear whether Trump has indeed offered to nominate Thiel―only that Thiel has said Trump would nominate him and that Trump's team has discussed Thiel as a possible nominee. Both sources requested anonymity, given that Trump and Thiel have each demonstrated a willingness to seek revenge against parties they feel have wronged them. In Thiel's case, he secretly financed lawsuits against Gawker.com with the intention of destroying the publication. He succeeded, and his role in the assault was only revealed in the final stages.
Is Thiel even qualified? Well, he's as litigious as Trump, and Trump loves him. What more qualifications would a President Trump need? He is a lawyer, having worked at Sullivan & Cromwell, "a prestigious New York law firm," for seven months. And he's vindictive and nasty and rich. A match made in heaven.
Huffington Post kindly offers some of Thiel's deepest public thoughts. Like this one: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. […] Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of 'capitalist democracy' into an oxymoron." Not that he'd take the vote away from anyone, he "clarified." Women and poor people should have just never gotten the vote in the first place.
Even Antonin Scalia might have some reservations of seeing his seat occupied by that. Maybe.
Can you chip in $3 to help Hillary Clinton keep Donald Trump out of the White House?