During the 2016 campaign, Trump had released two lists of potential nominees to the Supreme Court. After taking office, he
nominatedNeil Gorsuch to succeed Scalia, and Gorsuch was confirmed in April 2017. In November 2017, five more names were added to the previous lists of potential nominees. In June 2018, Associate Justice
Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, creating a second vacancy on the Supreme Court. In early July 2018, Trump
nominatedBrett Kavanaugh as his replacement; Kavanaugh was confirmed on October 6, 2018. Following the death of Associate Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18, 2020, Trump
nominatedAmy Coney Barrett as her replacement on September 26, 2020. Exactly a month later on October 26, 2020, Barrett was confirmed by a vote of 52–48.
The Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett confirmations were enabled by a rule change made by Senate Republicans in 2017, which applied the so-called
nuclear option to Supreme Court nominees and allowed nominations to be advanced by a simple majority vote rather than the historical norm of a three-fifths
supermajority vote.[1]Leonard Leo played a crucial role in selecting Trump's appointees and helping them successfully navigate their Senate confirmation hearings.[2][3]
President
Donald Trump began his term in January 2017 with a vacancy to be filled as a result of the February 2016 death of Justice
Antonin Scalia. As three of the Court's justices at the time—
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (born 1933),
Anthony Kennedy (born 1936) and
Stephen Breyer (born 1938)—were aged 78 or older, speculation arose that additional vacancies could occur during Trump's four-year presidential term.[4] Because Ginsburg and Breyer were part of the liberal wing of the Court and Kennedy was a swing vote who often aligned with them on social issues, many top political analysts saw Trump's term as a chance for Republicans to reshape the court significantly towards a more conservative vision of the law.[5][6] On June 27, 2018, this became a real possibility when Justice Kennedy officially announced his retirement.[7] Following the death of Ginsburg on September 18, 2020,[8] and the subsequent confirmation of
Amy Coney Barrett on October 26, 2020,[9] the Supreme Court had the following nine justices:
On February 13, 2016, Associate Justice
Antonin Scalia died while vacationing at
Cibolo Creek Ranch near
Marfa, Texas.[11] Scalia's death marked just the second time in 60 years that a sitting Supreme Court justice died.[12] This resulted in there being a Supreme Court vacancy during the last year of
Barack Obama's presidency.
Mitch McConnell, the
Republican Senate majority leader, stated that the new president, whoever won the
2016 election, should replace Scalia, while President Obama stated that he planned to
nominate someone to replace Scalia on the Supreme Court.[13] On February 23, the 11 Republican members of the
Senate Judiciary Committee signed a letter to McConnell stating their intention to withhold
consent on any nominee made by Obama, and that no hearings would occur until after January 20, 2017, when the new president took office.[14][15] On March 16, 2016, Obama
nominated then-chief judge
Merrick Garland (of the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit), to replace Scalia.[16] After Garland's nomination, McConnell reiterated his position that the
Senate would not consider any Supreme Court nomination until a new president took office.[16] Garland's nomination expired on January 3, 2017, with the Senate having taken no action on it.[17]
Trump rejected any move by Obama to fill the vacancy, maintaining that picking a successor to Scalia should be done by the next president.[18] During
his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump released two lists of potential Supreme Court nominees. On May 18, 2016, he released a short list of 11
judges for nomination to the Scalia vacancy.[19] Then, on September 23, 2016, he released a second list of 10 possible nominees, this time including three minorities.[20] Both lists were assembled by lawyers associated with the
Federalist Society and
The Heritage Foundation.[21]
Days after Trump's inauguration, Politico named three individuals as the front-runners for Scalia's position:
Neil Gorsuch,
Thomas Hardiman and
Bill Pryor, with Trump reportedly later narrowing his list down to Gorsuch and Hardiman.[22][23] At the time of the nomination, Gorsuch, Hardiman, and Pryor were all federal appellate judges who had been
appointed by President
George W. Bush.[24] President Trump and White House counsel
Don McGahn interviewed those three individuals as well as Judge
Amul Thapar of the U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Kentucky in the weeks before the nomination.[21] Trump announced Gorsuch as his nominee on January 31.[21][25] The Senate confirmed Gorsuch by a 54–45 vote on April 7, 2017, with votes from 51 Republicans and 3 Democrats.[26] He was
sworn into office as an associate justice of the Supreme Court on April 10.[27]
On June 27, 2018, Justice
Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court, effective July 31,[28][29] giving Trump an opportunity to send a second Supreme Court nominee to the Senate for confirmation. Kavanaugh was officially nominated on July 9, selected from among a list of "25 highly qualified potential nominees" considered by the Trump Administration.[30][31] Kavanaugh's nomination was officially sent to the Senate on July 10, 2018, and confirmation hearings began on September 4. The hearings took longer than initially expected over objections to the withholding of documents pertinent to Kavanaugh's time in the Bush administration as a lawyer, and due to the presence of protestors.[32][33]
On September 16, 2018,
Christine Blasey Ford alleged a then-17 year old Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982, in what she described as an attempted rape.[34] The accusation delayed the scheduled September 20 vote. After Ford's accusation, Kavanaugh indicated he would not withdraw.[35] Ford's allegations were followed by an accusation of sexual assault by Yale classmate Deborah Ramirez,[36] and a letter from Julie Swetnick accusing Kavanaugh of gang rape in high school.[37] Ford and Kavanaugh appeared before the
Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing on September 27, and were questioned by Arizona sex crimes prosecutor
Rachel Mitchell and members of the Senate.[38][39] The Judiciary Committee voted to approve Kavanaugh on September 28 after
Jeff Flake, considered to be a swing vote, declared his intent to vote in favor of the nomination with the provision that there would be a new FBI investigation into the allegations by Ford.[40] The investigation concluded on October 4. Two days later, Kavanaugh was confirmed by a 50–48 vote, and sworn in that same day.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, 2020. The following day, Trump stated that any successor of Ginsburg would "most likely" be a woman.[41] On September 25, 2020, it was announced that Trump intended to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to succeed Ruth Bader Ginsburg as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. On October 26, 2020, Barrett was confirmed by a vote of 52–48.[42][43] She was sworn in the next day.
Possible nominees
Below is a list of individuals which President Trump identified as his potential nominees for Supreme Court appointments. Most of them were revealed in two lists released by the Trump campaign in 2016. Others were added in a revised list released by the White House on November 17, 2017[44] and a fourth list released on September 9, 2020.[45]
Following the nomination of
Amul Thapar to the Sixth Circuit, it was reported that Trump might try to season some of the candidates on his list with federal appellate court experience prior to potential nomination to the Supreme Court.[46] Indeed, Trump later elevated a number of state court judges from his list to fill vacant positions on the federal Courts of Appeals:
Joan Larsen (Sixth Circuit),
David Stras (Eighth Circuit),
Allison H. Eid (Tenth Circuit),
Don Willett (Fifth Circuit), and
Britt Grant (Eleventh Circuit). Conversely, two previous Trump appointees to the Courts of Appeals—
Amy Coney Barrett (Seventh Circuit) and
Kevin Newsom (Eleventh Circuit)—were later added to the list of potential Supreme Court candidates.
Despite speculation that Trump might consider other candidates for a possible second Supreme Court nomination, he said in May 2017 that he would make his next appointment from the same list he used to choose Gorsuch (the combined 21 names given on either of the two lists he released during the campaign), describing the list as "a big thing" for him and his supporters.[47] Trump added five further candidates to the list on November 17, 2017.
Note: Names marked with a single asterisk (*) were included on the original short list of eleven potential candidates for the Scalia vacancy released by the Trump campaign on May 18, 2016. Names marked with a double asterisk (**) were included on the additional short list of ten more potential candidates released on September 23, 2016. Names marked with a dagger (†) were added to the revised short list of November 17, 2017. Names marked with a double dagger (‡) were included on the additional short list of twenty more potential candidates released on September 9, 2020.
^Willett was originally placed on Trump's (first) short list for the Supreme Court as an associate justice of the
Texas Supreme Court. After the nomination of Gorsuch to the Scalia vacancy, however, Trump nominated Willett to the
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Willett was confirmed on December 13, 2017, and this appointment is considered to enhance his potential for nomination to a future Supreme Court vacancy.
^Larsen was originally placed on Trump's (first) short list for the Supreme Court as an associate justice of the
Michigan Supreme Court. After the nomination of Gorsuch to the Scalia vacancy, however, Trump nominated Larsen to the
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Larsen was confirmed on November 1, 2017, and this appointment is considered to enhance her potential for nomination to a future Supreme Court vacancy.
^Thapar was originally placed on Trump's (second) short list for the Supreme Court as a judge of the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. After the nomination of Gorsuch to the Scalia vacancy, however, Trump nominated Thapar to the
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Thapar was confirmed on May 25, 2017, and this promotion is considered to enhance his potential for nomination to a future Supreme Court vacancy.
^Barrett was successfully nominated by Trump to the
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and confirmed on October 31, 2017. She first appeared on Trump's revised short list for the Supreme Court in November 2017 after the Scalia vacancy had already been filled.
^Stras was originally placed on Trump's (first) short list for the Supreme Court as an associate justice of the
Minnesota Supreme Court. After the nomination of Gorsuch to the Scalia vacancy, however, Trump nominated Stras to the
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Stras was confirmed on January 30, 2018, and this appointment is considered to enhance his potential for nomination to a future Supreme Court vacancy.
^Eid was originally placed on Trump's (first) short list for the Supreme Court as an associate justice of the
Colorado Supreme Court. After the nomination of Gorsuch to the Scalia vacancy, however, Trump nominated Eid to the
Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Eid was confirmed on November 2, 2017, and this appointment is considered to enhance her potential for nomination to a future Supreme Court vacancy.
^Grant first appeared on Trump's revised short list for the Supreme Court as an associate justice of the
Georgia Supreme Court in November 2017 after the Scalia vacancy had already been filled. Trump subsequently nominated Grant to the
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Grant was confirmed on July 31, 2018, and this appointment is considered to enhance her potential for nomination to a future Supreme Court vacancy.
^Newsom was successfully nominated by Trump to the
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and confirmed on August 1, 2017. He first appeared on Trump's revised short list for the Supreme Court in November 2017 after the Scalia vacancy had already been filled.
^Wyrick was successfully nominated by Trump to the
Western District of Oklahoma and confirmed on April 9, 2019. He first appeared on Trump's revised short list for the Supreme Court in November 2017 as an associate justice of the
Oklahoma Supreme Court after the Scalia vacancy had already been filled.
^
abcdGoldmacher, Shane; Johnson, Eliana; Gerstein, Josh (January 31, 2017).
"How Trump got to yes on Gorsuch". Politico.
Archived from the original on February 1, 2017. Retrieved February 1, 2017.