Donald Trump Wants Peter Thiel On The Supreme Court, Sources Say
The eccentric billionaire endorsed Trump in a speech at the Republican National Convention this summer.
Ben Walsh and Ryan Grim
09/15/2016
Donald Trump has made it clear he will nominate Peter Thiel to the Supreme Court if he wins the presidency, Thiel has told friends, according to a source close to the PayPal co-founder.
Trump “deeply loves Peter Thiel,” and people in the real estate mogul’s inner circle are talking about Thiel as a Supreme Court nominee, a separate source close to Trump told The Huffington Post. That source, who has not spoken to Trump directly about Thiel being nominated to the Court, cautioned that Trump’s offers often fail to materialize in real life.
It’s not clear whether Trump has indeed offered to nominate Thiel ― only that Thiel has said Trump would nominate him and that Trump’s team has discussed Thiel as a possible nominee. Both sources requested anonymity, given that Trump and Thiel have each demonstrated a willingness to seek revenge against parties they feel have wronged them. In Thiel’s case, he secretly financed lawsuits against Gawker.com with the intention of destroying the publication. He succeeded, and his role in the assault was only revealed in the final stages.
Trump’s press secretary, Hope Hicks, denied that Thiel had been offered a seat on the Supreme Court or that the campaign was discussing the idea. “There is absolutely no truth to this whatsoever,” she told HuffPost.
“Peter hasn’t had any conversations about a Supreme Court nomination and has no interest in the job,” said Thiel spokesman Jeremiah Hall.
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A gay tech billionaire who supports marriage equality, Thiel is a self-described libertarian and pursues quixotic projects like government-free sea colonies and infinite life extension. He would be a radical departure from the nominees on Trump’s list, but his nomination would be in keeping with Trump’s willingness to make unorthodox, contradictory decisions.
Thiel is deeply conservative, however, and his more fanciful ideas can sometimes obscure his support for broadly mainline Republican policies and candidates. Thiel has given millions of dollars in total to candidates like Ron Paul, Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina. Like Trump, Thiel’s core political belief appears to be that his financial success validates his ideas.
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UPDATE: 12:50 p.m. ― After this story was published Thursday morning, Hall went beyond his initial comments, issuing the following statement to Forbes and HuffPost: “Huffington Post’s sources are lying. The truth is Peter hasn’t had any conversations about a Supreme Court nomination and has no interest in the job.”
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