Three sources have told Axios.com that President Trump told confidants he intends to nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the U.S. Supreme Court seat currently held by Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
A favorite of conservative activists, Barrett is a devout Catholic who has been vocal about her opposition to abortion.
When Trump was deliberating last year over replacing Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, the president told a number of people of his plan for Barrett, Axios reported.
"I'm saving her for Ginsburg," Trump said, according to the three sources.
On one occasion, Trump used that line in a private conversation with an adviser two days before announcing Brett Kavanaugh's nomination.
Axios commented that nominating Barrett "would throw gas on the culture-war fires, which Trump relishes," but he chose to wait.
When Trump was considering a replacement for Kennedy, some of his advisers feared Barrett's staunch opposition to abortion rights would lose the votes of Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
Other advisers disagreed, contending the two senators ultimately would "do the right thing" and vote for Barrett.
Some aides reasoned that the president likely would be in a better position to nominate Barrett after the 2018 midterms in which Republicans were expected to pick up Senate seats. The GOP ended up gaining two, for a total of 53.
Axios noted that replacing one of the court's most liberal jurists with Barrett "would cement a young, reliably conservative majority that could last for decades."
Feinstein: Your 'dogma lives loudly within you'
When Barrett was an appeals court nominee in 2017, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., drew widespread criticism for probing Barrett's Catholic beliefs.
Feinstein told the judge her "dogma lives loudly within you."
"I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma," Feinstein said. "And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you, and that's of concern when you come to the big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country."
See Feinstein confront Amy Coney Barrett:
Barrett, who clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, co-wrote a law-school paper stating that when a judge's morals conflict with the law, the judge should withdraw from the case.
But Feinstein drew the opposite conclusion from the paper, maintaining the law review article concluded "it may well be that a Catholic judge cannot be independent."
"You have a long history of believing that your religious beliefs should prevail," the senator claimed of the then-Notre Dame law professor.