Pushing back against Trump, granddaughter says Ginsburg dictated her final wish

Clara Spera says her grandmother, former US justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dictated to her the final wish that she not be replaced before the November 3 election, after US President Donald Trump questioned the veracity of the statement.

“In the final days of her life, I asked my grandmother if there was anything she wanted to say to the public, to anyone, that wasn’t already out there,” Spera tells BBC’s Newshour. “I pulled out my computer and she dictated the following sentence to me. She said: ‘My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.'”

“I read it back to it and she was very happy with it. When I asked ‘is that it, is there anything else you’d like to say?’ She said, ‘The rest of my work is a matter of public record.’ So that’s all she wanted to add.”

On “Fox & Friends” on Monday, Trump claimed without evidence: “I don’t know that she said that, or was that written out by Adam Schiff and Schumer and Pelosi,” referring also to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Schiff later tweeted: “No, I didn’t write Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dying wish to a nation she served so well, and spent her whole life making a more perfect union. But I am going to fight like hell to make it come true. No confirmation before inauguration.”

Ginsburg, 87, died Friday from metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Trump is expected to announce Ginsburg’s replacement by week’s end and seeks to push the nomination through the Senate before the election.

— with AP