Amy Coney Barrett will not appear at the final day of her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, which is too bad, since she has some explaining to do. CNN has uncovered still more public talks Barrett failed to disclose in her Senate paperwork, including yet another one with an anti-abortion group.
Of course, the fact that this is far from the first such thing Barrett failed to disclose means that we already know her explanation: shrug, it’s hard to remember stuff. And since Republicans aren't any more interested in honesty or transparency than she is, she’s not feeling any pressure.
At the final day of hearings, senators on the Judiciary Committee will speak again, Republicans will move to advance to the full Senate for a vote, and Democrats will call for a week’s delay, which Lindsey Graham, the committee chair, has said he will honor.
“That would put the committee’s vote to approve Judge Barrett’s nomination on Oct. 22,” The New York Times reports. “A vote on confirmation by the full Senate is expected the following week, as early as Oct. 26.” “As early as” is an interesting phrase here, since it speaks to how quickly Senate Republicans have jammed this nomination through, but the fact that October 26 would be one week and one day before Election Day highlights the other side of the rush: It’s incredibly last-minute.
Also at Thursday’s hearing, members of the American Bar Association’s standing committee on the federal judiciary will come to say that Barrett is qualified. Then Democrats will bring witnesses to illustrate the dangers Barrett poses to regular people by limiting access to abortion and other health care, and Republicans will bring witnesses to say that Barrett is a very nice lady whose niceness means we should pretend she won’t strip tens of millions of people of key healthcare protections and send women to back alleys for abortions.