As Newsmax predicted three weeks ago (Dec. 11), District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Merrick Garland is expected to be named U.S. attorney general shortly.
Four years after Senate Republicans denied him a hearing after President Barack Obama nominated him to the Supreme Court, Garland, now 68, will be tapped by Joe Biden as the nation’s top law enforcement official.
There had been considerable speculation that Biden would instead give the attorney general portfolio to former Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., who was co-chairman of the former vice president's 1988 presidential campaign in Alabama, or to former U.S. Justice Department official Sally Yates.
But, sources close to Biden insisted to Newsmax that the former vice president has always had strong feelings about Garland and his denial of a hearing, and that the veteran jurist was always his first choice for attorney general.
“Joey wants to give Republicans in the Senate the opportunity to vote to confirm Merrick Garland — something a lot of them wanted,” Bobby Juliano, venerable labor lobbyist on Capitol Hill and a friend of Biden’s since 1973, told Newsmax.
At the time of Garland’s nomination, several Republican senators, including Chuck Grassley, Iowa, and Pat Toomey, Pa., publicly broke with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and called for hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. McConnell, however, said no.
If confirmed, Garland will be the first rejected Supreme Court nominee to receive another position since Appellate Judge John Parker in 1930. Rejected for the high court by a 41-39 vote, Parker was later named an associate judge of the U.S. War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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