Latest in Merrick Garland
The hearing was polite, informative and moving—and nonetheless reflected the post-truth world in which Republican senators choose to live.
On Monday, February 22, 2021, at 9:30 a.m., the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a confirmation hearing on the nomination of Merrick Garland to be the next U.S. attorney general.
You can watch a livestream of the hearing here or below:
This morning, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that he had spoken to President Trump regarding James Comey’s replacement for the FBI Director and recommended Merrick Garland. McConnell isn’t the first person to suggest the idea. Republican Senator Mike Lee previously floated Garland for FBI Director as well.
Neil Gorsuch is an eminent jurist who is undoubtedly qualified to be an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court. So too is Merrick Garland. In the law of the jungle that now governs the confirmation process, where principle is absent and power politics alone is what matters, Gorsuch will likely make it to the Supreme Court for the same reason that Garland did not: The Republicans controlled the Senate last year when Obama was President, and continue to control it now when Trump is President. Elections have consequences and the Democrats lost the key ones.
Judge Merrick Garland has some experience with what he is about to go through: being stonewalled by senators who profess to have nothing against him. Back in 1995, when he was nominated to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Senator Charles Grassley—now the Judiciary Committee’s Chairman—blocked his nomination for more than a year, all the while claiming he had no problem with Garland himself.