Joe Biden will nominate a corrupt anti-abortion hack to a lifetime Federal Court judgeship in Kentucky in exchange for Mitch McConnell not screwing with his nomination of two US Attorneys in the state too much.
Chad Meredith, the potential beneficiary of this largess, is a part of McConnell's political machine.
So a lifelong position is to be gifted to a political hack who is hip deep in former Governor Matt Bevins' pardons for campaign donation scandals, in exchange for a couple of lawyers getting a good entry in their resumes.
To quote (not) Tallyrand, "This is worse than a crime, this is a mistake."
First you are giving away a big prize in exchange for basically nothing, and secondly, Mitch McConnell cannot be trusted to keep his end of the bargain.
President Joe Biden struck a deal with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to nominate Chad Meredith, a Republican anti-abortion advocate, to a federal judgeship on the Eastern District of Kentucky, Slate has confirmed. Under the arrangement, Meredith would take the seat currently occupied by Judge Karen Kaye Caldwell, a George W. Bush nominee. Caldwell submitted her move to senior status on June 22, which, once complete, will allow Meredith to take the seat. A lawyer with connections to the Kentucky governor’s office who is familiar with the agreement told Slate that Caldwell conditioned her move upon the confirmation a successor—specifically, the conservative Meredith. In exchange, McConnell will allow Biden to nominate and confirm two U.S. Attorneys to Kentucky.
Caldwell, who once dated McConnell, conditioning her retirement on the nomination and confirmation of a chosen successor is a statement that she will be making an official act, her retirement, in exchange for what should be a completely unrelated official act by the President of the United States and the US Senate.
That sounds an awful lot like a solicitation of a bribe, or extortion, to me.
………
The deal has prompted fury from Democrats since it was first reported by the Louisville Courier Journal’s Andrew Wolfson and Joe Sonka on Wednesday. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, confirmed the planned nomination at a Thursday press conference. Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth also confirmed the White House’s intent to nominate Meredith in an interview with Slate on Friday. Yarmuth described the agreement as “indefensible” and said he wrote “the strongest text message I have ever written to anybody” to a contact at the White House expressing his “outrage.”
Gee, a strongly worded text message. How about digging up dirt on this guy?
Beshear and Yarmuth were especially frustrated because they had intended to submit potential nominees as soon as vacancy arose on the court. The White House was aware of this plan, but did not inform them that Caldwell planned to take senior status. As a result, Beshear and Yarmuth had no opportunity to make recommendations. Instead, the Biden administration coordinated with McConnell to tee up Meredith’s nomination once Caldwell announced her intent to leave the seat. According to Slate’s source in Kentucky, McConnell agreed, in exchange, to stop blocking Democrats’ preferred nominees for U.S. Attorney in the state. McConnell has sought to place his own allies in these positions—including prosecutor Thomas B. Wine, who as the Jefferson County Commonwealth’s Attorney refused to charge the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor.
I get that there is a custom for the senior Senator to have a role in making these nominations, but nothing in the Senate rules or law requires this, and if it takes an additional few weeks for the vote, so be it.
Negotiating with terrorists is never a good idea.
………
Meredith is an especially controversial nominee because of his close ties with Matt Bevin, the former Republican governor. He played an integral role in the controversial pardons that Bevin issued after losing reelection in 2019. Most notably, the former governor pardoned Patrick Baker, a man convicted of homicide whose family hosted a political fundraiser for Bevins. U.S. Attorneys later retried Baker in federal court; he was once again convicted by a jury and sentenced to nearly four decades in prison. Meredith assisted Bevins with pardons in his capacity as legal counsel to the governor, recommending which applicants merited clemency. He then withheld records relating to these pardons from the Beshear administration. The Trump administration considered nominating Meredith to a federal judgeship but dropped the plans in 2020 following the pardon controversy, as the Louisville Courier Journal reported at the time.
So, this guy was too dirty for Donald John Trump, but Biden is OK with this?
Alarmingly for Democrats, Meredith also defended Kentucky’s anti-abortion legislation, including a law that forced patients to undergo an ultrasound and listen to audio of the fetal “heartbeat” before terminating a pregnancy. Meredith prevailed at the court of appeals. He also defended a law requiring abortion providers to secure “transfer agreements” with hospitals, an onerous burden on clinics with no health benefit to patients. The appeals court upheld that statute, as well.
This guy is not just a corrupt McConnell crony, he is an active menace to the rights of every woman in his potential jurisdiction.
This action by the Biden administration transparently craven and hypocritical.
As such, it is bad policy, and worse politics, because people do not want to vote for cowards.
0 comments :
Post a Comment