In Trump Court Front-Runner, Religious Right Sees One of Its Own

Three years ago, when Amy Coney Barrett was a nominee to the federal appeals court in Chicago, she endured a blistering Senate confirmation hearing in which Democrats grilled her on whether her deep Catholic faith would distort her view of the law.

She maintained a calm demeanor under the intense questioning. But behind the scenes, she was “a little shook,” recalled Laurence Silberman, a Washington federal appeals court judge for whom Barrett once clerked and who sat with her family at the 2017 hearing.

Now, as the front-runner to be President Donald Trump’s nominee to replace liberal icon ...