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Sen. Angus King, Maine's independent who caucuses with Democrats, apparently thinks he's doing his independent thing by making nice with Trump and Republicans on Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.
After nearly four hours fielding questions and comments at a Gorsuch-themed town hall here Sunday night, King still wasn't tipping his hand. Yet he began to drop hints about how he could eventually get to "yes" on Gorsuch—one of President Donald Trump's first and most enduring choices of his young presidency, and one of the few Trump decisions against which Democrats have struggled to fight back.
"Whatever else you can say about him, my sense from his record is, he's exceedingly independent," King, who identifies as independent but caucuses with Democrats, said near the end of his marathon "listening session" on the Supreme Court. Hundreds packed into a university auditorium and spilled into an overflow room for the event.
"Many of his decisions are contrary to the Justice Department, the immigration services, various agencies," King added of Gorsuch. "He's a real stickler for limits on executive power."
As if we're operating on normal conditions here. As if Trump didn't have a completely insane Twitter meltdown over the weekend, repeating the wildest of conspiracy theories that the President Obama was officially persecuting him. As if the Trump regime wasn't preparing to roll out another illegal Muslim ban today. As if Republicans didn't spend the last year mounting an unprecedented blockade against Obama's perfectly well-qualified nominee. As if Republicans now weren't operating as a rubber stamp for a clearly unqualified and extremely dangerous Trump.
There's a very strong case for postponing action on the Gorsuch nomination because of all of those things and more. Democrats—including King—need to be the voice of reason here. They need to do everything in their power to force a slow-down of this process. Because the Supreme Court is that crucial. Because what the Senate does now—in either enabling or obstructing Trump—will reverberate for generations.