By Lawrence Hurley and Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Republican-led U.S. Senate handed President Donald Trump a major pre-election political victory on Monday by confirming his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett as he delivered a dramatic conservative overhaul of the nation’s top judicial body.
The Senate voted largely along party lines to confirm Barrett to a lifetime post, overcoming unified Democratic opposition to the Republican president’s third Supreme Court appointment and creating a 6-3 conservative majority.
Barrett’s addition cements one of the most right-leaning Supreme Court rosters in generations. The shifting of the Supreme Court and the broader federal judiciary to the right has been a signature achievement of Trump’s presidency, aided by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung)
