US Senate opens hearing into Trump's Supreme Court pick

The US Senate Judiciary Committee has begun a four-day confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

The Senate panel's chairman predicted on Monday that it would be a "long contentious week," as Republicans seek to approve her ahead of the November 3 presidential election.

Barrett has been nominated to fill the vacancy left by liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last month aged 87.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who chairs the committee, paid tribute to Ginsburg and said Barrett would be a "worthy successor."

"This is going to be a long contentious week," Graham said, adding, "Let's make it respectful. Let's make it challenging. Let's remember, the world is watching."

But one Democratic senator on the committee described the process as "shameful." 

The 48-year-old appellate court judge sat at a table facing the senators wearing a black face mask amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Barrett’s nomination close to the presidential election has sparked a political row between the Republicans and the Democrats are firmly opposed to Barrett.

Barrett’s confirmation seems almost certain as the Republicans have a Senate majority. Her confirmation would give the court a 6-3 conservative majority that could lead to rulings rolling back abortion rights, expanding religious and gun rights, and upholding Republican-backed voting restrictions, among other issues.

Barrett’s confirmation would shift the court's ideological balance for potentially decades to come.

Trump insists that his conservative pick join the Supreme Court before the November vote. But the Democrats see Barrett’s nomination as an election-season power grab by Trump and the Republicans.

Kamla Harris, the running mate of  Democratic nominee Joe Biden, called the confirmation process so near the election "illegitimate."

"I do believe this hearing is a clear attempt to jam through a Supreme Court nominee who will take away healthcare from millions of people during a deadly pandemic that has already killed more than 214,000 Americans," Harris said, speaking via a video link.

"A clear majority of Americans want whomever wins the election to fill this seat and my Republican colleagues know that. Yet they are deliberately defying the will of the people in their attempt to roll back the rights and protections provided under the Affordable Care Act," Harris said.

Barrett represented anti-Iran MKO terrorists: Report 

Barrett is said to have represented the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group in a case pursing the removal of the notorious anti-Iran cult from the State Department’s list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.

The Washington Post reported last month that Judge Barrett disclosed her legal work for the MKO in the Senate questionnaire she submitted during her 2017 confirmation process to join the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.

In her questionnaire, Barrett wrote that she was one of five lawyers on a team that worked for the terror group and its US representative office from 2000 to 2001 in their petition to review the State Department’s foreign-terrorist-organization designation.

She also explained that she had “assisted with legal research and briefing” for the MKO’s case while she worked for Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin LLP, a law firm in Washington that merged with Baker Botts LLP in 2001 during her employment there.

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Foreign ministry: Iranians main victims of US-backed terrorists

The MKO has conducted numerous assassinations and bombings against Iranian statesmen and civilians since the 1979 victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Its members fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where they enjoyed backing from former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

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