Trump May Have Set an Unfortunate Precedent With His SCOTUS Short List

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Mike Lee thinks Trump making a list of SCOTUS prospects is so cool that I bet he thinks everybody should do it. Photo: Leigh Vogel/Getty Images

The reaction of conservative opinion-leaders to Donald Trump’s list of prospects he would consider for the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court was generally quite positive. But big-time constitutional conservative Senator Mike Lee, who hasn’t endorsed Trump and was himself left off the list (though his brother was included!), took the cake:

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Speaking completely objectively here, [it] stands above the rest. It wasn’t that there were some great names on that list, that was the best, most conservative Supreme Court list I have ever seen from any president and I was thrilled by that.

Aside from the fact that Lee appears to have decided Trump’s going to be president, this comment was interesting because the mogul’s public list of legal figures from which he promises to choose a justice isn’t just the “best” list — it’s the first from any president, and certainly from any presidential candidate. Sometimes sitting presidents have internal lists when an appointment is imminent, but they’re not public, and they aren’t put together eight months before the list-maker will be (he hopes) in a position to nominate anybody. 

Yeah, you can see how this could be yet another dubious legacy of Trump 2016, along with gutter language, misogyny, white identity politics, and a postmodern attitude toward facts. 

Trump May Have Set Precedent With SCOTUS List