Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, chaired the Judiciary Committee but refused to convene a hearing for Judge Garland and met with him only grudgingly. As a result, he said last year that he would not consider a nominee in 2020 if he were still chairman of the panel. But he has since left the top spot on the panel to take over the Finance Committee, sparing him the prospect of either going back on his word or infuriating Mr. Trump and his colleagues. Allies say they doubt he would take a stand against a nominee since he is no longer chairman.
Republicans say the difference between 2016 and 2020 is one of political alignment. Democrats held the White House and Republicans controlled the Senate in 2016; Republicans now control both. To Mr. McConnell and his colleagues, that shift justifies their new position. But in 2016, Republicans focused most of their argument against taking up Mr. Obama’s nominee not on party control, but on the basis of the approaching presidential election, and they would face thunderous charges of hypocrisy if they took up a nomination next year…
“Any scenario where an impeached president is trying to jam through a Supreme Court pick in an election year, in direct defiance of the precedent Mitch McConnell set with Merrick Garland in 2016, would rightly spark a war,” said Brian Fallon, the head of Demand Justice, a progressive group formed in response to the Republican blockade of Judge Garland.
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