In September, Mike Lee responded dismissively to reports that he was on Donald Trump’s short list for the Supreme Court, asserting that he “already has the job he wants” in Congress. That was then. Now the Utah senator says he’d “absolutely” accept a high court nomination if chosen.
The Daily Caller (see also related Washington Examiner story):
“Absolutely I would,” Lee told a Washington radio station. “The Supreme Court is something I have been interested in my entire life. I’ve been watching Supreme Court arguments since I was ten years old.”
At his news conference Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump said there would be a decision to replace Justice Antonin Scalia with a potential court nominee “probably within two weeks of the 20th.”
The Utah senator told WMAL that he is “thrilled to have President Trump replacing Justice Antonin Scalia instead of President Obama.”
Lee hopes that Trump will pick a Supreme Court nominee who is similar to Scalia in being “aggressive, lively, forceful, textualist, and originalist.”
During the election, the senator had called on Trump to drop out of the presidential race following the release of hot mic audio revealing explicit comments about women in 2005. Last September, he had shot down the possibility about a nomination to the Supreme Court when his spokesperson told Politico that the senator “already has the job he wants.”
He had previously clerked for the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah before serving as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Lee’s most recent book “Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America’s Founding Document” advocates for restoring founding constitutional principles.
