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In reply to the discussion: Dear Senator Dianne Feinstein: This is not about you. [View all]onenote
(42,829 posts)Now we have two guesses. And no one will ever know.
What we do know is that she was pretty adamant about not wanting to retire.
I am unaware of her ever expressing regret for not resigning before Trump became president. Indeed, before Trump was elected she was quoted as saying "I will retire when it's time. And, when is it time? When I can't do the job full-steam." And after he was elected, she reiterated her intention to stay on the court, stating (in 2018): "I'm now 85. My senior colleague, Justice John Paul Stevens, he stepped down when he was 90, so I think I have about at least five more years." And in 2019 she responded to the argument that she should have stepped down years earlier when Obama was president, stating "When that suggestion is made, I ask the question: Who do you think that the President could nominate that could get through the Republican Senate? Who you would prefer on the court (rather) than me?
Put another way, I don't recall hearing her every suggest it was a strategic error for Thurgood Marshall to retire in June 1991, at age 82, thereby paving the way for Bush to name Clarence Thomas to the Court, even though, with benefit of hindsight, if he had held on until his death in 1993, Clinton would have filled that seat.