Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took no time to reject President Barack Obama’s nomination for the Supreme Court, declaring his refusal to even consider Merrick Garland in the hearing process.
“It seems clear that President Obama made this nomination not with the intent of seeing the nominee confirmed, but in order to politicize for purposes of the election,” McConnell said.
The senator’s response is no surprise. Since Justice Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death in February, Senate Republicans have vowed to block any nominee the president puts forward to replace the late justice.
“The Senate will appropriately revisit the matter when it considers the qualification of the nominee the next president nominates, whoever that might be,” McConnell said on Wednesday shortly after the president’s announcement of his nominee, the chief judge of the influential DC Circuit.
