Hillary Clinton may never get to be president, but she now says she has already made her influence felt on the the United States Supreme Court.
The twice-failed presidential candidate admitted Wednesday to playing a role in her husband Bill’s selection of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to ascend to the highest court in the land in 1993, making her the second woman to serve on the court.
“I knew that of all the people who were part of the women’s movement she was one of the key players because of her creative understanding of the law and her sense of commitment,” said Clinton. “I may have expressed an opinion or two about the people he should bring to the top of the list.”
Hillary boasts about Ginsburg nomination
Clinton and her husband Bill joined Ginsburg at a Georgetown University event, where they talked about Ginsburg’s nomination to the Supreme Court, her workout regimen, her legal career, and abortion. Bill, strangely, admitted that he talked to Ginsburg about her opinion about abortion before nominating her, all but admitting that she was litmus-tested for whether she supported Roe v. Wade.
“Abortion was a big issue in 1992 — the right to choose. I was one of the first pro-choice Democrats to run since Roe v. Wade, who actually benefited from Roe v. Wade,” Clinton said. “Now, she didn’t have to say anything about this. She knew this perfectly well that I was under a lot of pressure to make sure I appointed someone who is Simon-pure, which I had said was important.”
Clinton said that he knew he wanted to nominate Ginsburg within 10 minutes of first meeting her. But according to Madame Benghazi, the former first lady may have exerted some influence in pushing Ginsburg, who was known for her work in women’s rights, to the front of the line.
Either way, it’s an unusually candid admission from a former president and his wife that political considerations were involved in their selection of a Supreme Court justice. Even as the Clintons admitted to ideology paying a role, Hillary bashed Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, saying they weren’t experienced enough and had been selected for political reasons.
Ginsburg joked about her age at the time — 60 — and said that any concerns about her being too old at the time were clearly baseless.
Bill vague about wife’s 2020 plans
The Clintons also played off of Ginsburg’s cult of personality by joking that they tried her workout regimen and found it difficult. Ginsburg has a devoted following of progressive fans who idolize her as the “Notorious R.B.G.” for her roles in advancing women’s rights, and she is noted for her resilience both as a judge and for having overcome numerous health scares.
“It was a real struggle,” Bill said.
At 86, she is the oldest justice on the Supreme Court as well as the core liberal judge. Her recent cancer scares encouraged speculation of a scorched-earth battle for her seat before the 2020 election, but the famously robust judge has returned to work with a vengeance.
While Ginsburg has become something of a secular saint among progressives, Clinton’s reputation is much spottier, thanks in part to her loss to Trump in 2016. Clinton’s return to the media circuit amid Donald Trump’s impeachment has prompted speculation that she will run again in 2020, something that Bill declined to dismiss Wednesday. “She may or may not run,” Bill cryptically said.
No comments: