Former vice-president Joe Biden says he will nominate Merrick Garland to be U.S. attorney general, reports the Associated Press. An official announcement is expected Thursday.
Merrick Garland is currently serving as a federal appeals court judge. He was infamously nominated by Barack Obama in 2016 to fill the vacancy left by the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, but never got a hearing, thanks to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. After Trump was elected, Neil Gorsuch was nominated and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Thank you, Mitch, by the way!
Sources say he was selected over outgoing U.S. Senator Doug Jones and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, but New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was reportedly on Vice President Joe Biden’s shortlist for the position. Between Cuomo’s botched COVID-19 response, which includes his sending thousands of elderly patients to their deaths with his disastrous nursing home policy in the early months of the pandemic, to his being accused of sexual harassment by a former aide last month, he probably didn’t stand a chance of getting the nomination.
According to the Associated Press, it is “unclear” how the selection of Garland will be received by black and Latino advocates, “who had advocated for a Black attorney general or for someone with a background in civil rights causes and criminal justice reform.”
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Matt Margolis is the author of Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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