Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is quietly making phone calls to senior federal judges and urging them to step aside ahead of the 2020 election, The Courier Journal has learned.

A source familiar with the Kentucky leader's thinking described Monday how McConnell is personally reaching out to judges appointed by past Republican presidents.

"Yes, he has made calls," said a longtime McConnell confidant who asked for anonymity in order to speak freely.

McConnell is making the requests because he wants time to replace the judges with new conservative-minded jurists, the source indicated.

It is unclear when McConnell started making this push, and if it has continued as Kentucky and the country continue to focus on the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

Starting at age 65, a judge may retire at his or her current salary or take senior status (a form of semiretirement) after 15 years of active service, according to uscourts.gov.

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The effort underscores how the GOP leader might be concerned about Republicans losing their Senate majority in the fall or President Donald Trump failing to be reelected.

McConnell's office downplayed those concerns in a statement Monday.

"I'd point you back to his (long-running) mantra of ‘leave no vacancy behind,'" McConnell spokesman Robert Steurer said Monday. "He’s been telegraphing this as far back as June."

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Amy McGrath told The Courier Journal the revelation typifies the senator's "35-year failed track record" on issues such health care and jobs in Kentucky.

"With a pandemic consuming our country, Mitch McConnell needs to be focused on working to pass a relief package immediately and nothing else," she said. "... He is out of touch, and we learned that more and more each day he is in office."

McConnell campaign manager Kevin Golden shot back at McGrath, the presumed Democratic front-runner, by noting that the senator was intimately involved in securing $8.5 billion to fight the virus, including $7 million to Kentucky.

Golden also announced that the McConnell campaign has converted its entire voter contact operation into a meals program for Kentucky seniors and other at-risk residents impacted by the virus.

"Meanwhile, McGrath hasn't changed her self-serving negative advertising campaign that only benefits her consultants," he said.

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The phone calls to judges spotlights how McConnell's mission in the past three years has been reshaping the U.S. judiciary at a breakneck pace. Such a move also further infuriates Democrats and liberal-leaning groups who are still steaming at his decision to block former President Barack Obama from filling a Supreme Court seat in 2016.

In February, the tandem of Trump and McConnell placed its 51st circuit court judge on the bench, falling only a few nominations short of what former Obama did over the course of two terms.

McConnell has been able to help Trump appoint 193 federal judges, including two Supreme Court justices, to the bench since 2017.

"I think putting strict constructionists on the courts is the single biggest way you can have a long-term impact on the country," McConnell told The Courier Journal in October 2018.

McConnell reiterated the judiciary's importance most recently during a surprise trip back to Louisville on Friday when he was one of two speakers — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the other — at a special oath ceremony for U.S. District Judge Justin Walker.

"It's safe to say that in recent years there's been a lot of enthusiasm surrounding judicial confirmations, to put it mildly — brave public servants who've been tossed into the media circus and subjected to partisan attacks," McConnell said Friday.

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McConnell's attendance at the Walker ceremony drew sharp criticism from Democrats nationally as well as would-be Democratic opponents in Kentucky.

That's because he adjourned the Senate until Monday as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin were negotiating a multibillion-dollar legislative package aimed at tackling the coronavirus crisis.

"Sen. McConnell is going away for a long weekend without considering legislation to curb this public health crisis," McGrath, a retired Marine fighter pilot, said in a Thursday tweet. "In the Navy, the captain doesn’t leave the bridge when the ship is under duress. It’s a pretty basic leadership principle."

The House approved a bipartisan measure with the Trump administration's blessings over the weekend, but the proposal hit a technical speed bump due to issues around the wording of the Medicaid reimbursement and small business tax credit sections.

McConnell, who canceled the Senate recess, said Monday he spoke with several committee chairs over the weekend about additional steps such as further financial assistance and support for the health care system.

He said the disease presents the U.S. with a "unique challenge" but blamed the technical snag as the reason why legislation hasn't been taken up yet.

"As of this afternoon we're still waiting for the House to reach a decision on possible technical corrections and submit a final product," McConnell said.

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McGrath is airing a new TV spot this week that says McConnell has ignored average Kentuckians for decades.

The McConnell campaign on Monday called on McGrath to suspend the ad amid the coronavirus outbreak.

"Amy McGrath’s decision to blanket the airwaves with deceitful ads during the coronavirus outbreak is tasteless and shameful," said Golden, the McConnell campaign manager. "As Kentuckians adjust their daily lives and schedules to help stem the outbreak, the last thing they need to see on TV is negative political advertising. The McGrath campaign must stop airing all of their advertisements."

Reach Phillip M. Bailey at pbailey@courier-journal.com or 502-582-4475. Follow him on Twitter at @phillipmbailey.