Judge Barrett and Senate Republicans seem oblivious that any Trump nominee in the current circumstances is thoroughly and irrevocably ethically tainted, and that by even accepting nomination s/he reveals a shocking lack of professional judgment. 1/

By accepting nomination from a president who, in the very course of selecting a judicial candidate, has announced his expectation that the new justice will discard the rule of law in favor of his continuing power, Judge Barrett has surrendered all credibility as a jurist. 2/

The problem can’t be solved by a nominee saying she would refuse herself from deciding a case related to outcome of 2020 presidential elections. 3/

Anybody who now accepts nomination from Trump is demonstrating a lack of commitment to meaningful - perhaps any - constitutional constraints upon the executive branch. 4/

Trump and Senate Republicans have explicitly stated their expectation that the Court, not the electorate, should and will decide the 2020 presidential elections. 5/

Trump and Republican Senators explicitly plan to disregard popular sovereignty in favor of a decision procedure meant to reinforce the power of a sitting chief executive officer. The U.S. Constitution is wholly premised on the unacceptability of precisely such tyranny. 6/

No nominee can accept appointment to SCOTUS under these circumstances without thereby disqualifying herself as an arbiter of American constitutional law. 7/

Trump and the Republican Senate have created an inescapable ethical quagmire for anybody who fills the current SCOTUS vacancy via a Trump nomination. To agree to accept a Supreme Court appointment in these circumstances is to condone to tyranny. 8/

It would not matter if Trump nominated Merrick Garland himself. 10/

Law professors, law school deans, and those who employ young lawyers must tell current law students that no Trump appointee to the current Supreme Court vacancy can be taken seriously as a credible participant in the rule of law. 11/

Law professors and law school deans must be clear: they will not support students applying to clerk for a justice who has gained appointment from a president who specifically regards the judiciary as nothing other than a device for keeping him and his party in power. 12/

Law firms and others who employ lawyers should also be clear: they will not hire those who work for a justice who accepted Trump’s nomination after Trump explicitly stated his reliance on the judiciary rather than the electorate to keep him in power. 13/

Rank-and-file lawyers cannot prevent Republicans from confirming Barrett. And Barrett almost certainly will accept appointment. But legal profession as a whole can…14/

…make it abundantly clear that any Trump appointee to the current SCOTUS vacancy will not be supported by the millions of working lawyers committed to law as distinct from raw power. 15/