Report: Donald Trump Would Put Peter Thiel On The Supreme Court... Wait, What?

Could this be Trump's worst idea yet?

ThielTrumpWhen Donald Trump released his Supreme Court shortlist earlier this year — a list that Neal Katyal described as “the Heritage Foundation list minus the smart people” UPDATE (9/15/16 12:09 p.m.): For the record, Katyal was making a joke to set up his following compliment of Paul Clement and Brett Kavanaugh, who he thought were inexplicably left off Trump’s list — the campaign hoped to assuage the fears of Republicans worried that the bombastic billionaire would spit on conservative values and turn the Supreme Court into a publicity stunt.

Fast forward a few months, and… Donald Trump is apparently planning to turn the Supreme Court into a publicity stunt.

According to a report in the Huffington Post, billionaire maintenance worker Peter Thiel is telling friends that he’s Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court:

Donald Trump has made it clear he will nominate Peter Thiel to the Supreme Court if he wins the presidency, Thiel has told friends, according to a source close to the PayPal co-founder.

Trump “deeply loves Peter Thiel,” and people in the real estate mogul’s inner circle are talking about Thiel as a Supreme Court nominee, a separate source close to Trump told The Huffington Post.

First of all, all we have is a report that Thiel is going around telling some of his friends this fact, but he’s not necessarily made a public announcement. But he is reportedly bragging about it, which makes it newsworthy. Second, assuming Thiel is really spreading this story, it still deserves to be taken with a whole shaker of salt because no one should lose sight of the fact that Donald Trump is a mercurial nutjob. Frankly, he’s probably promised the open seat on the Court to about 30 people already — personal valets Chris Christie and the desiccated corpse of Rudy Giuliani among them. In a sense, what Donald Trump’s done is weaponize The Producers for a presidential run, which is a terrifying statement.

Still, I guess Thiel would be the first openly gay justice. That would be cool. He’d also be the first justice to bathe in the blood of babies since Roger Taney.

Sadly, he would not be the first justice convinced that women are ruining America with help from the poor (psst… he means black people):

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In a 2009 essay, Thiel wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Part of the reason for that incompatibility, Thiel argued, was that women had gained the right to vote and that the government sometimes helps poor people.

“Since 1920,” he wrote, “the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron.”

As a wise man would say, “very classy.”

Of course both Trump and Thiel raced to deny the story as soon as it reached the public, which with these two does very little to confirm or disconfirm the report:

Trump’s press secretary, Hope Hicks, denied that Thiel had been offered a seat on the Supreme Court or that the campaign was discussing the idea. “There is absolutely no truth to this whatsoever,” she told HuffPost.

“Peter hasn’t had any conversations about a Supreme Court nomination and has no interest in the job,” said Thiel spokesman Jeremiah Hall.

In any event, if you were wondering what a venture capitalist might know about the law — other than to use it for petty vendettas — Thiel got his J.D. at Stanford and worked at Sullivan & Cromwell for seven months.

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That is to say, “nothing.” And yet here he is with a greater than zero chance of sitting on the Supreme Court.

Donald Trump Wants Peter Thiel On The Supreme Court, Sources Say [Huffington Post]

Earlier: Making SCOTUS Great Again: Trump’s Supreme Court Shortlist


Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.