Colleague @johnson_carrie reports that Biden's pick for attorney general will be Merrick Garland. President Obama's last Supreme Court nominee, who was denied a hearing by a Republican Senate, now faces the prospect of a hearing before a Senate that Democrats may control. @NPR
Garland's deputies would be Lisa Monaco and Vanita Gupta, per a source talking with @johnson_carrie.
In the contrast between Garland (blocked in an election year) and Barrett (confirmed during the actual election) it's easy to argue Garland was the larger offense. In 2020 it could be said the president and Senate were still in office and should do their jobs for the full term.
Confirming a justice, as with Barrett, would have been a simple standard to apply everywhere. John Marshall was actually confirmed in a lame duck Congress after being nominated by a lame duck President. They were still in office. So they did the job they were elected to do.
But in Garland's case, Senate leader McConnell applied a purely partisan standard that because the Senate and President were of different parties the Senate need not do its job. He said some past lawmakers had blocked nominations (or talked of it!) in the past, so it was fine.
Now, Garland, who was kept waiting and for the most part not even allowed to meet with senators, is to be nominated as attorney general, with a mandate to repair a Justice Department that Biden sees as profoundly politicized.
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Rep. Mancy Mace, R-SC, tells @MorningEdition she supported Trump but knows Biden won and Congress shouldn’t re-litigate. Now a target of violence. “The American people were lied to, his followers were lied to... people believed that Congress could usurp the...Electoral College.”
“I had my swearing in on Sunday. I'm a single mom. I brought my two children up... But I put my kids on the first plane home on Monday because [of] the rhetoric I was hearing...
“My life has been threatened... I was accosted Tuesday night on a street in D.C. This is not OK.”
"Nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale that would have tipped the entire election. Nor can public doubt alone justify a radical break when the doubt itself was incited without any evidence."
"This election actually was not unusually close.... 1976, 2000, and 2004 were all closer than this one," said McConnell. If Congress overturned it, "our democracy would enter a death spiral." Calls his vote to uphold the election the most important of his 36 years in the Senate.
McConnell adds, "The United States Senate has a higher calling than an endless spiral of partisan vengeance." Calls for the Senate to "honor the people's decision."
On @MorningEdition, @ReverendWarnock talks of his runoff win, making him the state’s first Black senator: “Welcome to the new Georgia. It is more diverse. It is more inclusive.” @NPR
How can @ReverendWarnock lead in a divided time? “You have to continue to embody the truth... I lead Ebenezer Baptist Church where Martin Luther King Jr. served. He said that we are tied in a single garment of destiny, caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality.” @NPR
In the @MorningEdition interview, @noelking asks about Trump's demand that Georgia fraudulently change election results for him: "There are enablers of this nonsense in the United States Senate," and Georgians disapprove. "Quite frankly, it's why I got in." @NPR
DHS official @C_C_Krebs, fired for accurately saying the election was secure: “What we saw was […] what has kind of become known as a ‘perception hack,’ where an adversary could claim that the system was compromised.” That was the “biggest risk.” It came from a domestic source.
Krebs is one of a number of Republican officials at the federal, state and local levels who insisted on responding to facts within the law. He lost his job; others have been targets of scorn and threats.
On @MorningEdition Krebs: “Continuing to push narratives that call into question, without evidence that I've seen,” the secure election, is “not just damaging to the psyche of the American voter, but... doing a serious disservice to the many election officials out there.” @NPR
I spent the last four years covering Donald Trump’s presidency while also writing history. Here, in the @nytimes, is one thing I learned. nytimes.com/2020/11/29/opi…
Andrew Jackson “was followed by eight presidents who served in his shadow... none of whom went on to a second term. History does not linger long on most of them... In the same way, Mr. Trump’s place in history may be overshadowed by Mr. Obama’s.”
“It is astonishing to recall how much Mr. Trump devoted his term to re-fighting the battles of the Obama years.” Yet “he neither erased all of President Obama’s accomplishments nor completed his own,” and on Jan. 20 he will be replaced by Obama’s vice president.