Pointers at Glance
- President Joe Biden confirmed that he has planned to nominate an anti-abortion lawyer to a lifetime federal judiciary appointment.
- Beshear said that he received no further update from the white house during a press conference on Thursday.
- “Plans for Meredith’s appointment were a part of some larger deal on judicial nominations between Biden and McConnell,” said a democratic representative, John Yarmuth of Kentucky.
President Joe Biden confirmed in a press conference on Thursday that he has planned to nominate an anti-abortion lawyer to a lifetime federal judiciary appointment in Kentucky. That assessment came in a 2018 letter from former Republican Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin’s general counsel suggesting that now-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell support Chad Meredith becoming a federal district court judge.
Andy Beshear released the letter from M.Stephen Pitt in response to the public records request a day after releasing emails showing Biden had planned to nominate Meredith to the federal bench.
The nomination was not made as planned on June 24, when the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court reversed its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing women’s constitutional right to obtain abortions.
Biden, a Democrat, has been sharply criticized by Beshear, progressives, and abortion supporters over his consideration of Meredith, a conservative former Kentucky solicitor general who has defended abortion restrictions.
During a press conference on Thursday, Beshear said that he had not received any further update from the white house on whether Biden still plans to nominate Meredith. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that they don’t comment on an executive branch or judicial vacancies and have not made a nomination yet.
“Plans for Meredith’s appointment were a part of some larger deal on judicial nominations between Biden and McConnell,” said a democratic representative, John Yarmuth of Kentucky.
In the 2018 letter, Pitt urged McConnell to recommend that then-Republican President Donald Trump nominate Meredith. He had written McConnell a similar letter in 2016. Meredith previously worked under Pitt as a chief deputy general counsel to Bevin.
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