Barrett to sit with McConnell and other GOP senators in back-to-back meetings

President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, has a packed schedule on Capitol Hill Tuesday, when she will meet with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and seven other key Senate Republicans in back-to-back sessions.

Barrett’s first meeting will be with McConnell at 10 a.m., and there will be a stakeout afterward for reporters in the Senate’s wood-paneled Mansfield Room. 

She will then meet at 11 a.m. with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who is also a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee. 

The 48-year-old 7th Circuit Court judge and former law professor will then break for lunch before a 1 p.m. meeting with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who is also a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that will conduct her confirmation hearings. 

Grassley told reporters Monday he is “very comfortable” with the accelerated confirmation schedule for Barrett, whom Republicans want to seat on the court by Election Day in case the results of the presidential election are litigated all the way to the high court. 

At 2 p.m. Barrett will meet with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), an outspoken conservative on the Judiciary Committee, who has praised her credentials as “impeccable” and is already accusing Democrats of gearing up to “destroy her reputation for political gain.”

At 3 p.m. Barrett will meet with Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.), who was an early proponent of seating her on the court before Election Day and who says there’s overwhelming support within the Senate GOP conference to confirm Trump’s pick.

The nominee will then meet at 3:45 p.m. with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), another member of the Judiciary Committee, who has praised Barrett as a “textualist and an originalist” who is “devoted to the principle of constitutionally limited government.”

Barrett will meet at 4:30 p.m. with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), an influential member of the Senate Republican freshman class. He has praised her as “a brilliant legal mind who understands the proper and distinct roles of the three branches of government.”

Barrett will wrap up her long day with a final meeting at 5:30 pm with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is tasked with running the confirmation process.

Graham has scheduled confirmation hearings to begin Oct. 12, which would set up a Senate floor vote the week before Election Day.

Hearings will last three to four days and a committee vote is expected on Oct. 22, though Graham has discretion to schedule it earlier if he chooses.