Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) kept Garland from getting a vote, but now says he’d confirm a Trump nominee just before the 2020 election.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who blocked Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2016, reaffirmed on Tuesday that he would happily ram through confirmation of one of President Donald Trump’s nominees if a vacancy occurred in the final months of Trump’s term.
Now, his office is defending that statement, claiming it was not a reversal of McConnell’s previous comments on the matter.
McConnell claimed in 2016 that Garland’s nomination by President Barack Obama, following Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, should not be brought to a vote because “the American people should have a say in the Court’s direction.” In February of that year, he released a statement vowing to keep the seat open so that the next president would be able to fill it.
View the complete May 29 article by Josh Israel on the ThinkProgress website here.