‘Brilliant lawyer, a genuine and good person’

A liberal Harvard law professor defended Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment to the Supreme Court, calling her “brilliant” in a recent op-ed.

© Alex Brandon/AP
Judge Amy Coney Barrett speaks after President Donald Trump announced Barrett as his nominee to the Supreme Court, in the Rose Garden at the White House Saturday.

“Like many other liberals, I’m devastated by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, which opened the way for President Donald Trump to nominate a third Supreme Court justice in his first term. And I’m revolted by the hypocrisy of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s willingness to confirm Trump’s nominee after refusing to even allow a vote on Judge Merrick Garland,” Bloomberg opinion columnist and lawyer Noah Feldman wrote Saturday.

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“Yet these political judgments need to be distinguished from a separate question: what to think about Judge Amy Coney Barrett, whom Trump has told associates he plans to nominate.”

“And here I want to be extremely clear. Regardless of what you or I may think of the circumstances of this nomination, Barrett is highly qualified to serve on the Supreme Court,” Feldman, who specializes in constitutional studies at Harvard, continued.

Feldman relayed that he met and worked with Barrett when they both clerked for the Supreme Court in 1998.

“Of the thirty-some clerks that year, all of whom had graduated at the top of their law school classes and done prestigious appellate clerkships before coming to work at the court, Barrett stood out,” he said.

Feldman described Barrett as one of the sharpest lawyers he met and would seek her guidance on complicated matters.

“When assigned to work on an extremely complex, difficult case, especially one involving a hard-to-comprehend statutory scheme, I would first go to Barrett to explain it to me,” he said.

Feldman also said Barrett’s Catholic faith and conservative values should not be criticized, as “constitutional interpretation draws on the full resources of the human mind.”

“We have a Supreme Court nominee who is a brilliant lawyer, a genuine and good person — and someone who holds views about how to interpret the law that I think are wrong and, in certain respects, misguided. I hope the senators at her hearing treat her with respect,” he said.

“And when she is confirmed, I am going to accept it as the consequence of the constitutional rules we have and the choices we collectively and individually have made. And I’m going to be confident that Barrett is going to be a good justice, maybe even a great one — even if I disagree with her all the way,” Feldman concluded.

Trump officially nominated Barrett on Saturday evening, saying she is “one of our nation’s most brilliant and gifted legal minds.”

Barrett’s confirmation hearings will reportedly begin the week of Oct. 12.

Tags: News, Amy Coney Barrett, Supreme Court, Donald Trump, Harvard University

Original Author: Emma Colton

Original Location: Liberal Harvard law professor defends Barrett appointment: ‘Brilliant lawyer, a genuine and good person’