Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called out the New York Times for its slanderous piece on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s family ahead of her confirmation to the Supreme Court. NYT went after Judge Barrett and her husband’s two adopted children, piling onto the public spectacle already made of the minor children.
NYT deep dive into Barretts' second adoption from Haiti reveals ... loving couple working patiently through disappointments to give loving home to orphan in need. https://t.co/m8l03zkMIx
— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) October 19, 2020
Leader McConnell called on NYT to leave Judge Barrett’s children out of the narrative around her confirmation.
“The political left and the press should leave Judge Barrett’s children alone. The nominee introducing her family in a few sentences of prepared remarks does not give the New York Times license to start treating minor children like objects of public curiosity,” he wrote in a statement.
He pointed out that that nonpartisan adoption agencies have asked that adopted children be left out of confirmation battles:
“This is a strange pattern for the New York Times. In 2005, another Supreme Court nominee from another Republican president also had adopted children. The Times tried to make an issue of them too. Nonpartisan adoption advocates had to publicly shame the newspaper before they publicly walked away from the story. One such group restated two weeks ago that this entire ‘thread of conversation’ should be ‘off the table.’ Too bad the Times ignored them...If Judge Barrett happened to be a liberal icon, the press would be running interference against personal attacks and hounding Republicans to denounce them, not pretending they represent some chin-stroking national conversation.”
Judge Barrett is set to be voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
