Trump intends to choose Barrett to be the new high court justice, according to multiple senior Republican sources with knowledge of the process.
Barrett, the mother of seven children and a former law clerk to the late right-wing beacon Justice Antonin Scalia, Barrett, now 48, was a finalist for the Supreme Court spot that went to Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.
She met with Trump to discuss the nomination on Monday, sources close to the process told CNN.
Advocates on the far right have backed her possible nomination because of her writings on faith and the law. Religious conservatives were especially energized for Barrett when, during the 2017 confirmation hearing for her current judgeship, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California suggested to her that the "dogma lives loudly within you." Barrett supporters believed the nominee was being disparaged for her Catholicism.
For all the reasons that Trump sees Barrett as a potential successor to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Democratic senators and liberal advocates have long been poised to oppose her, warning particularly that she could roll back abortion rights and invalidate the Affordable Care Act.
Critics beyond Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, have suggested Barrett's religious views would influence her rulings.
Barrett testified that her faith would not shape her rulings at the Senate hearings for appointment by Trump to the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin.
2nd Amendment, immigration and abortion
Since joining the appellate bench, Barrett has been a cautious jurist, plainly aware that she remains under a national microscope for any Supreme Court confirmation battle. Still, she has demonstrated her conservative bona fides on Second Amendment gun rights, immigration and abortion.
Last year, she dissented alone when a 7th Circuit panel majority rejected a Second Amendment challenge from a man found guilty of felony mail fraud and prohibited from possessing a firearm under federal and Wisconsin law.
"History is consistent with common sense: it demonstrates that legislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns," she wrote in Kanter v. Barr, applying an originalist approach that looked to the 18th-century intentions. "But that power extends only to people who are dangerous. Founding legislatures did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons."
Barrett concluded, "Holding that the ban is constitutional ... does not put the government through its paces, but instead treats the Second Amendment as a second-class right."
More recently in June, she dissented as a 7th Circuit panel left intact a US district court decision temporarily blocking a Trump policy that disadvantaged green card applicants who apply for any public assistance. In dispute were federal immigration regulations regarding when an applicant would be deemed a "public charge" and ineligible for permanent status in the US.
In her dissent, Barrett wrot
