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The ripple-effect of the FBI Director James Comey's extraordinary confirmation that there is an active investigation into popular vote loser Donald Trump's campaign and its potential collusion with Russia finally hit where it matters most—with Senate Democrats looking at a rushed Supreme Court nomination. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY):
“I’d like to point out that it is the height of irony that Republicans held this Supreme Court seat open for nearly a calendar year while President Obama was in office, but are now rushing to fill the seat for a president whose campaign is under investigation by the FBI,” Schumer said, according to remarks sent out by his office.
Schumer said that, to him, it seemed “unseemly to be moving forward so fast on confirming a Supreme Court Justice with a lifetime appointment” due to the looming FBI investigation, which could potentially last for months or years.
“You can bet that if the shoe was on the other foot—and a Democratic President was under investigation by the FBI—that Republicans would be howling at the moon about filling a Supreme Court seat in such circumstances,” Schumer said. “After all, they stopped a president who wasn’t under investigation from filling a seat with nearly a year left in his presidency.”
That's putting it all rather mildly. Democrats should be insisting that these hearings and the vote that is supposed to follow be suspended until the cloud over Trump is resolved. The very legitimacy of his presidency is in question, and the idea that he could ultimately affect the balance of the Supreme Court for the next three decades with this nomination is more than unseemly. The fact that it follows the unprecedented, unprincipled, un-American blockade of Merrick Garland by Republicans makes it worse.
Democrats need to fight this with everything they've got. Will it end in Mitch McConnell nuking the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees? That's hardly a threat. That's going to happen regardless. If not on this nominee, then on the next one. Democrats need to force McConnell to do that, to make his choice of Trump over the nation apparent to everyone. Make McConnell and the Republicans own Trump, make them own his potential treason.
