Have you ever heard something so ludicrous that it sent you into wheezing, nose-running fits of laughter – until you find out it’s true?

For me, that moment came when someone suggested that President Trump could potentially be considering a TV personality for the next vacant SCOTUS seat.

Sure, Senator Lindsey Graham, in praising the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court by Trump, mentioned something about his fear of who Trump would pick for the seat left vacant by the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia. He said he didn’t know who Trump would pick – possibly a TV judge, or something.

You just couldn’t believe he’d go that far, however.

Then again, if Fox News personality, Judge Andrew Napolitano is to be believed, the president is absolutely considering it.

After meeting with President Trump twice during the transition, first in December and again in mid-January, the Newark, N.J.-born television personality told several people that Trump said he was on the list of judges from whom he was selecting a nominee for the high court. “He said, ‘Trump said I’m on the list,’” said a source who spoke with Napolitano shortly after one of his meetings with the then president-elect. “He’s been saying that since the transition.”

Napolitano was suspended from Fox News for an indefinite length of time this past week for picking up incomplete and unsubstantiated information from an online discussion board, regarding British intelligence surveilling Trump at the behest of then-President Obama, and then presenting that rumor on air as fact.

The British government have vehemently denied the accusations and subsequent testimony by FBI Director James Comey before the House Intelligence Committee confirmed that there was no surveillance or “wiretapping” ordered regarding Donald Trump.

Still, undeterred, Napolitano sees a payoff that far exceeds a few guest spots on TV.

Friends warned Napolitano not to take the president too literally – or seriously. “He’ll take your call and invite you to the Oval Office, but he just wants you to say nice things about him on TV,” the source says he told Napolitano at the time. But that didn’t sink the ambitious judge’s hopes. Trump released a list of potential replacements for the late Justice Antonin Scalia before the election, vowing to select Scalia’s replacement from that list — and followed through, tapping Tenth Circuit judge Neil Gorsuch for the nomination in January. Napolitano’s name did not appear on any public list.

I suppose Napolitano’s name is on a “special” list. In fact, the term Napolitano is using with those he’s told his exciting bit of news to is that he’s a “sleeper candidate.” He’s submitted his personal and academic works to the president’s office, so he’s actively vying for some sort of consideration.

He also visited with Trump during the transition to talk about the kind of judge needed to fill the SCOTUS seat left vacant by Scalia.

Trump ultimately chose Gorsuch, but should another seat come open, Napolitano feels like he is as good as in.

I guess with those kinds of ambitions, he’s not very worried that an internet hoax got him bounced, indefinitely, from his TV gig.

He has other options, in the meantime, and he is definitely a keen mind.

“I think 20 years from now, people will look at 9/11 the way we look at the assassination of JFK today,” he told radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in 2010. “It couldn’t possibly have been done the way the government told us.”

Or the way millions of Americans saw with their own eyes being carried out on national TV.

I guess with a reality TV presidency, the next logical step is an InfoWars Supreme Court nominee.