Billionaire industrialist Peter Thiel has allegedly told friends Republicans presidential nominee Donald Trump has privately promised to nominate him to the U.S. Supreme Court, should he prevail in the November election. He earned a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1992 and had a clerkship at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and a seven-month stint at Sullivan & Cromwell in NY.
Advertisement
Here’s a frightening thought: Proud gay Republican/anti-government tech billionaire Peter Thiel as your next Supreme Court Justice.
But if it turns out there is no truth to the Thiel rumor (which appears likely), it still raises the question as to who who Trump would appoint to the Supreme Court instead.
The Huffington Post’s story also included a quote from the Trump campaign, which said there is “no truth to this whatsoever”. Thiel’s rep also denied the claims, saying he “hasn’t had any conversations about a Supreme Court nomination and has no interest in the job”.
PayPal founder, Gawker destroyer…
Thiel is, like Trump, a unsafe and vindictive opponent of the First Amendment. If nominated and confirmed, he would be the first openly gay member of the Court.
Trump released a list of 11 potential Supreme Court nominees in May.
There is now one vacancy on the Supreme Court after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February. The list, which consisted entirely of sitting state and federal judges with years of experience on the bench, wasn’t meant to be definitive. The campaign says the list is not exhaustive, but is “representative of the kind of constitutional principles I value and, as president, I plan to use this list as a guide to nominate our next United States Supreme Court justices”.
Advertisement
Thiel, who considers himself a libertarian, once wrote that he “no longer [believes] that freedom and democracy are compatible”, arguing the “vast increase in welfare beenficiaries and the extension f the franchise to women … have rendered the notion of “capitals democracy” into an oxymoron”. He said this incompatibility was due to women gaining the right to vote and because of poor people. He also wrote about applying for clerkships with Scalia and Justice Anthony Kennedy as a younger man.
