Quick diary here, but I have ideas as to how to attack Amy Coney Barret’s nomination to the Supreme Court. And no, invoking the “McConnell Rule” is not one of them. (Arguments that boil down to “Republicans aren’t being fair” are weak and need to be dispensed with.) And attacking on policy grounds is not among them, either; Republicans care nothing about policy, only power. No, the ideas have to do with exercising power against certain members of the Court and the Republicans who installed them.
First: It’s just been established that Trump is a criminal. Not just a bad businessman, a criminal, with tax returns that evidence money laundering. We cannot allow a criminal to select a Supreme Court Justice. The pick is void from the start. Democrats need to keep hammering that point home: the pick was illegitimate as soon as it was made. If her pick was illegitimate, then so is her confirmation process. If Trump is a criminal, what kind of quid pro quo is he expecting from her? This would require investigation by an incoming Biden Attorney General.
Second, in rushing to nominate Barrett before the election, Republicans are confirming that the nomination and confirmation of Gorsuch was illegitimate, and that Gorsuch is an illegitimate squatter on the Court. It’s clear that McConnell and Senate republicans acted unconstitutionally and illegally (use that language) in ignoring Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland. Recall that McConnell was warned that Clinton would likely win the presidency, and that he should accept Garland rather than a more liberal Justice she would likely nominate. Yet McConnell waited — as if he were confident of the elections’s outcome. Were Barrett actually installed on the Court, an incoming Biden Attorney General should feel compelled to thoroughly investigate the circumstances around that delay, including a thorough investigation of McConnell himself. I feel confident there’s plenty of dirt to uncover, particularly in light of McConnell’s close ties to Russian-connected oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska.
Third, an incoming Biden AG would also need to investigate Kavanaugh, particularly the circumstances surrounding Kennedy’s abrupt resignation and the payment by as-yet unnamed individuals of Kavanaugh’s debts. What kind of quid pro quo was expected for that benefit? If there was any criminal intent whatsoever — even a whiff of it — then Kavanaugh’s nomination was fraudulent from the start, and therefore void.
The above certainly has elements of “burn it down” throughout, but ask yourself if you’d prefer to stay with the weak policy arguments and watch a 6-3 radial conservative majority appear on the Court for a generation or more? Or do you want to prevent that from happening? I’d frankly rather burn the Court down and rebuild it.