2020 Election results

[Econoline]

[ex-khobar Andy]

Washington Post has a tape of a Trump phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State to recalculate the votefrom November.

I don't have a WaPo subscription so I can't get behind their firewall. (There used to be a way using private mode or multiple browsers - not sure if that still works.) Anyway the Guardian is reporting it and so is CNN.


Horrific. Like a TV (bad) mob boss.

Pence should immediately enact a 25th Amendment removal. I don't think we can have another three weeks of this.

I've heard a few minutes of the tape on CNN. WaPo will release the whole thing.

[Guinevere]

Giving credit where credit is due (god help me, I’m quoting Mittens), Senator Romney posted this yesterday and I expect he will say similar on the Senate Floor:

The egregious ploy to reject electors may enhance the political ambition of some, but dangerously threatens our Democratic Republic. The congressional power to reject electors is reserved for the most extreme and unusual circumstances. These are far from it. More Americans participated in this election than ever before, and they made their choice. President Trump’s lawyers made their case before scores of courts; in every instance, they failed. The Justice Department found no evidence of irregularity sufficient to overturn the election. The Presidential Voter Fraud Commission disbanded without finding such evidence.

My fellow Senator Ted Cruz and the co-signers of his statement argue that rejection of electors or an election audit directed by Congress would restore trust in the election. Nonsense. This argument ignores the widely perceived reality that Congress is an overwhelmingly partisan body; the American people wisely place greater trust in the federal courts where judges serve for life. Members of Congress who would substitute their own partisan judgement for that of the courts do not enhance public trust, they imperil it.

Were Congress to actually reject state electors, partisans would inevitably demand the same any time their candidate had lost. Congress, not voters in the respective states, would choose our presidents.

Adding to this ill-conceived endeavor by some in Congress is the President’s call for his supporters to come to the Capitol on the day when this matter is to be debated and decided. This has the predictable potential to lead to disruption, and worse.

I could never have imagined seeing these things in the greatest democracy in the world. Has ambition so eclipsed principle?

[ex-khobar Andy]

I think this may well be a criminal offense under Georgia law. Trump is scheduled to go to GA on Monday (??) to hustle for the Senate races. He might be well advised to stay on the plane until he sees which way the wind is blowing.

[Guinevere]

Washington Post has a tape of a Trump phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State to recalculate the votefrom November.

I don't have a WaPo subscription so I can't get behind their firewall. (There used to be a way using private mode or multiple browsers - not sure if that still works.) Anyway the Guardian is reporting it and so is CNN.


Horrific. Like a TV (bad) mob boss.

Pence should immediately enact a 25th Amendment removal. I don't think we can have another three weeks of this.

I've heard a few minutes of the tape on CNN. WaPo will release the whole thing.

The Post piece:

‘I just want to find 11,780 votes’: In extraordinary hour-long call, Trump pressures Georgia secretary of state to recalculate the vote in his favor

By Amy Gardner
January 3 at 3:22 PM ET

President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that election experts said raised legal questions.

The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk.”

Throughout the call, Raffensperger and his office’s general counsel rejected Trump’s assertions, explaining that the president is relying on debunked conspiracy theories and that President-elect Joe Biden’s 11,779-vote victory in Georgia was fair and accurate.

Trump dismissed their arguments.

“The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” he said. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”

Raffensperger responded: “Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.”

At another point, Trump said: “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”

The rambling and at times incoherent conversation offered a remarkable glimpse of how consumed and desperate the president remains about his loss, unwilling or unable to let the matter go and still believing he can reverse the results in enough battleground states to remain in office.

“There’s no way I lost Georgia,” Trump said, a phrase he repeated again and again on the call. “There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”

Several of his allies were on the line as he spoke, including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchell, a prominent GOP attorney whose involvement with Trump’s efforts had not been previously known.

In a statement, Mitchell said Raffensperger’s office “has made many statements over the past two months that are simply not correct and everyone involved with the efforts on behalf of the President’s election challenge has said the same thing: show us your records on which you rely to make these statements that our numbers are wrong.”

The White House, the Trump campaign and Meadows did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Raffensperger’s office declined to comment.


On Sunday, Trump tweeted that he had spoken to Raffensperger, saying the secretary of state was “unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!”
Raffensperger responded with his own tweet: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true.”


The pressure Trump put on Raffensperger is the latest example of his attempt to subvert the outcome of the Nov. 3 election through personal outreach to state Republican officials. He previously invited Michigan Republican state leaders to the White House, pressured Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in a call to try to replace that state’s electors and asked the speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to help reverse his loss in that state.




His call to Raffensperger came as scores of Republicans have pledged to challenge the electoral college’s vote for Biden when Congress convenes for a joint session on Wednesday. Republicans do not have the votes to successfully thwart Biden’s victory, but Trump has urged supporters to travel to Washington to protest the outcome, and state and federal officials are already bracing for clashes outside the Capitol.


[Growing number of Trump loyalists in the Senate vow to challenge Biden’s victory]


During their conversation, Trump issued a vague threat to both Raffensperger and Ryan Germany, the secretary of state’s general counsel, suggesting that if they don’t find that thousands of ballots in Fulton County have been illegally destroyed to block investigators — an allegation for which there is no evidence — they would be subject to criminal liability.
“That’s a criminal offense,” he said. “And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.”


Trump also told Raffensperger that failure to act by Tuesday would jeopardize the political fortunes of David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, Georgia’s two Republican senators whose fate in that day’s runoff elections will determine control of the U.S. Senate.
Trump said he plans to talk about the fraud on Monday, when he is scheduled to lead an election eve rally in Dalton, Ga. — a message that could further muddle the efforts of Republicans to get their voters out.
“You have a big election coming up and because of what you’ve done to the president — you know, the people of Georgia know that this was a scam,” Trump said. “Because of what you’ve done to the president, a lot of people aren’t going out to vote, and a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative, because they hate what you did to the president. Okay? They hate it. And they’re going to vote. And you would be respected, really respected, if this can be straightened out before the election.”


T

rump’s conversation with Raffensperger put him in legally questionable territory, legal experts said. By exhorting the secretary of state to “find” votes and to deploy investigators who “want to find answers,” Trump appears to be encouraging him to doctor the election outcome in Georgia.
But experts said Trump’s clearer transgression is a moral one. Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University, said that the legal questions are murky and would be subject to prosecutorial discretion. But he also emphasized that the call was “inappropriate and contemptible” and should prompt moral outrage.
“He was already tripping the emergency meter,” Foley said. “So we were at 12 on a scale of 1 to 10, and now we’re at 15.”


Throughout the call, Trump detailed an exhaustive list of disinformation and conspiracy theories to support his position. He claimed without evidence that he had won Georgia by at least a half-million votes. He floated a barrage of assertions that have been investigated and disproved: that thousands of dead people voted; that an Atlanta election worker scanned 18,000 forged ballots three times each and “100 percent” were for Biden; that thousands more voters living out of state came back to Georgia illegally just to vote in the election.


“So tell me, Brad, what are we going to do? We won the election, and it’s not fair to take it away from us like this,” Trump said. “And it’s going to be very costly in many ways. And I think you have to say that you’re going to reexamine it, and you can reexamine it, but reexamine it with people that want to find answers, not people who don’t want to find answers.”


Trump did most of the talking on the call.

He was angry and impatient, calling Raffensperger a “child” and “either dishonest or incompetent” for not believing there was widespread ballot fraud in Atlanta — and twice calling himself a “schmuck” for endorsing Kemp, whom Trump holds in particular contempt for not embracing his claims of fraud.
“I can’t imagine he’s ever getting elected again, I’ll tell you that much right now,” he said.
He also took aim at Kemp’s 2018 opponent, Democrat Stacey Abrams, trying to shame Raffensperger with the idea that his refusal to embrace fraud has helped her and Democrats generally. “Stacey Abrams is laughing about you,” he said. “She’s going around saying, ‘These guys are dumber than a rock.’ What she’s done to this party is unbelievable, I tell you.”


The secretary of state repeatedly sought to push back, saying at one point, “Mr. President, the problem you have with social media, they — people can say anything.”
“Oh this isn’t social media,” Trump retorted. “This is Trump media. It’s not social media. It’s really not. It’s not social media. I don’t care about social media. I couldn’t care less.”


At another point, Trump claimed that votes were scanned three times: “Brad, why did they put the votes in three times? You know, they put ’em in three times.”
Raffensperger responded: “Mr. President, they did not. We did an audit of that and we proved conclusively that they were not scanned three times.”


Trump sounded at turns confused and meandering. At one point, he referred to Kemp as “George.” He tossed out several different figures for Biden’s margin of victory in Georgia and referred to the Senate runoff, which is Tuesday, as happening “tomorrow” and “Monday.”

West Wing fans, notice anything??

[Burning Petard]

Just who is the Georgia Sec of State? He seems to be the honest man Diogenes was looking for. Trump kept stringing more and more threats "from the most powerful man in the free world" and Raffensperger just kept saying no.

Wow!?! Did little Donnie step in it this time. Georgia Senate election day after tomorrow. Unlike the 'grab em by the pussy' tape, this one is now, not from years ago, and the White House sycophants don't have much time to spin it.

Does Pence have enough backbone (or maybe his spouse/Mother) to call for a 25th amendment hearing before Trump does something Really destructive?
After all Trump said today that the 330,000+ Covid19 deaths were fake news. Can we, the USoA, actually absorb whatever comes in the next temper tantrum before 20 January and Trump gets his eviction notice?

snailgate

[Joe Guy]

This link works for me even though I'm not a WAPO subscriber. It should work for others too.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Fox 'News' hasn't seen fit to mention this yet, at least not on their website. It's two hours since this was on CNN, where I saw it.

[Joe Guy]

WAPO now has the entire Trump call available but only for subscribers. However, I am able to listen to it here.

[Bicycle Bill]

You wanna talk to me about election fraud?  Trump’s own actions could constitute election fraud!!

Section 52 of the U.S. Code concerns voting and elections, and provides for a sentence of up to five years for:

“A person, including an election official, who in any election for Federal office

(1) knowingly and willfully intimidates, threatens, or coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any person for-

(A) registering to vote, or voting, or attempting to register or vote;

(B) urging or aiding any person to register to vote, to vote, or to attempt to register or vote; or

(C) exercising any right under this chapter; or

(2) knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by

(A) the procurement or submission of voter registration applications that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held; or

(B) the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held.”

In addition, Trump’s citing possible criminal charges for Raffensperger unless he produces a different election result in Georgia could be seen as extortion, which section 18, chapter 41 of the U.S. code expressly prohibits.

Now, he can self-pardon his way out of this (or resign on Jan 19th, and let Pence assume office and do it for him), but even if he doesn't, he's still got a rock-solid, titanium-clad defense.

He can always plead insanity.

-"BB"-

[Sue U]

To repurpose a previous Trump campaign slogan: "LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP!"

[Guinevere]

To repurpose a previous Trump campaign slogan: "LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP!"

Yes please, and soon.

[Big RR]

Nothing would please me more, but I'll bet it never happens.

[Sue U]

And another steaming pile of idiocy and nonsense gets tossed by the federal court, this time the colossally dumb lawsuit that for some reason the "Wisconsin Voters Alliance" filed in D.C. (I guess because they think the Electoral College lives there?) Posting the opinion here mostly for Darren, so he can see how "fraud" is not even an actual claim in the suit, but nevertheless all the fraud conspiracy theories are regurgitated in the complaint that pleads "we're not alleging any fraud." For fuck's sake you'd think that if they had an actual fraud case to make, they'd actually do so by this point -- ya know, presenting actual facts and evidence and such-- rather than dumping 310 pages of horseshit on the clerk's office.

That this is seriously bad-faith lawyering performed as nothing more than a political stunt has not escaped the Court's attention, and the lawyers behind it are likely to get sanctioned when the case is fully dismissed. Good. They should have their federal court admissions revoked for abuse of process and a zillion ethical violations.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
WISCONSIN VOTERS ALLIANCE, et al.,
Plaintiffs,
v.

VICE PRESIDENT MICHAEL R. PENCE, et al.,
Defendants.

Civil Action No. 20-3791 (JEB)

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Plaintiffs’ aims in this election challenge are bold indeed: they ask this Court to declare unconstitutional several decades-old federal statutes governing the appointment of electors and the counting of electoral votes for President of the United States; to invalidate multiple state statutes regulating the certification of Presidential votes; to ignore certain Supreme Court decisions; and, the coup de grace, to enjoin the U.S. Congress from counting the electoral votes on January 6, 2021, and declaring Joseph R. Biden the next President.

Voter groups and individual voters from the states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona have brought this action against Vice President Michael R. Pence, in his official capacity as President of the Senate; both houses of Congress and the Electoral College itself; and various leaders of the five aforementioned states. Simultaneous with the filing of their Complaint, Plaintiffs moved this Court to preliminarily enjoin the certifying of the electors from the five states and the counting of their votes. In addition to being filed on behalf of Plaintiffs without standing and (at least as to the state Defendants) in the wrong court and with no effort to even serve their adversaries, the suit rests on a fundamental and obvious misreading of the Constitution. It would be risible were its target not so grave: the undermining of a democratic election for President of the United States. The Court will deny the Motion.

I. Background

To say that Plaintiffs’ 116-page Complaint, replete with 310 footnotes, is prolix would be a gross understatement. After explicitly disclaiming any theory of fraud, see ECF No. 1 (Complaint), ¶ 44 (“This lawsuit is not about voter fraud.”), Plaintiffs spend scores of pages cataloguing every conceivable discrepancy or irregularity in the 2020 vote in the five relevant states, already debunked or not, most of which they nonetheless describe as a species of fraud. E.g., id., at 37–109. Those allegations notwithstanding, Plaintiffs’ central contention is that certain federal and state election statutes ignore the express mandate of Article II of the Constitution, thus rendering them invalid. Id. at 109–12. Although the Complaint also asserts causes of action for violations of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses, those are merely derivative of its first count. Id. at 112–15.

In order to provide an equitable briefing and hearing schedule on a very tight timetable, this Court immediately instructed Plaintiffs to file proofs of service on Defendants so that they could proceed on their preliminary-injunction Motion. See 12/23/20 Min. Order; Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(a)(1) (“The court may issue a preliminary injunction only on notice to the adverse party.”). Twelve days later, Plaintiffs have still not provided proof of notice to any Defendant, let alone filed a single proof of service or explained their inability to do so.

II. Legal Standard

“A preliminary injunction is an extraordinary remedy never awarded as of right.” Winter v. NRDC, 555 U.S. 7, 24 (2008). “A plaintiff seeking a preliminary injunction must establish [1] that he is likely to succeed on the merits, [2] that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, [3] that the balance of equities tips in his favor, and [4] that an injunction is in the public interest.” Sherley v. Sebelius, 644 F.3d 388, 392 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (quoting Winter, 555 U.S. at 20). “The moving party bears the burden of persuasion and must demonstrate, ‘by a clear showing,’ that the requested relief is warranted.” Hospitality Staffing Solutions, LLC v. Reyes, 736 F. Supp. 2d 192, 197 (D.D.C. 2010) (citing Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches v. England, 454 F.3d 290, 297 (D.C. Cir. 2006)).

Before the Supreme Court’s decision in Winter, courts weighed these factors on a “sliding scale,” allowing “an unusually strong showing on one of the factors” to overcome a weaker showing on another. Davis v. Pension Ben. Guar. Corp., 571 F.3d 1288, 1291–92 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (quoting Davenport v. Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, 166 F.3d 356, 361 (D.C. Cir. 1999)). Both before and after Winter, however, one thing is clear: a failure to show a likelihood of success on the merits alone is sufficient to defeat the motion. Ark. Dairy Coop. Ass’n, Inc. v. USDA, 573 F.3d 815, 832 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (citing Apotex, Inc. v. FDA, 449 F.3d 1249, 1253–54 (D.C. Cir. 2006)); Archdiocese of Wash. v. Wash. Metro. Area Transit Auth., 281 F. Supp. 3d 88, 99 (D.D.C. 2017), aff’d on other grounds, 897 F.3d 314 (D.C. Cir. 2018).

III. Analysis

Given that time is short and the legal errors underpinning this action manifold, the Court treats only the central ones and in the order of who, where, what, and why. Most obviously, Plaintiffs have not demonstrated the “irreducible constitutional minimum of standing.” Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). Although they claim to have been “disenfranchised,” ECF No. 4 (PI Mem.) at 37, this is plainly not true. Their votes have been counted and their electors certified pursuant to state-authorized procedures; indeed, any vote nullification would obtain only were their own suit to succeed. To the extent that they argue more broadly that voters maintain an interest in an election conducted in conformity with the Constitution, id. at 38, they merely assert a “generalized grievance” stemming from an attempt to have the Government act in accordance with their view of the law. Hollingsworth v. Perry, 570 U.S. 693, 706 (2013). This does not satisfy Article III’s demand for a “concrete and particularized” injury, id. at 704, as other courts have recently noted in rejecting comparable election challenges. See Wood v. Raffensperger, 981 F.3d 1307, 1314–15 (11th Cir. 2020); Bowyer v. Ducey, No. 20-2321, 2020 WL 7238261, at *4–5 (D. Ariz. Dec. 9, 2020); King v. Whitmer, No. 20-13134, 2020 WL 7134198, at *10 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 7, 2020). Plaintiffs’ contention that the state legislature is being deprived of its authority to certify elections, moreover, cannot suffice to establish a distinct injury-in-fact to the individuals and organizations before this Court. Finally, to the extent that Plaintiffs seek an injunction preventing certain state officials from certifying their election results, see PI Mem. at 1, that claim is moot as certification has already occurred. Wood, 981 F.3d at 1317.

Moving on from subject-matter jurisdiction, the Court must also pause at personal jurisdiction. Plaintiffs cannot simply sue anyone they wish here in the District of Columbia. On the contrary, they must find a court or courts that have personal jurisdiction over each Defendant, and they never explain how a court in this city can subject to its jurisdiction, say, the Majority Leader of the Wisconsin State Senate. Absent personal jurisdiction over a particular Defendant, of course, this Court lacks authority to compel him to do anything.

Even if the Court had subject-matter and personal jurisdiction, it still could not rule in Plaintiffs’ favor because their central contention is flat-out wrong. “Plaintiffs claim that Article II of the U.S. Constitution provides a voter a constitutional right to the voter’s Presidential vote being certified as part of the state legislature’s post-election certification of Presidential electors. Absence [sic] such certification, the Presidential electors’ votes from that state cannot be counted by the federal Defendants toward the election of President and Vice President.” Compl., ¶ 32 (emphasis added); see also PI Mem. at 1. More specifically, “Plaintiffs [sic] constitutional claims in this lawsuit are principally based on one sentence in Article II of the U.S. Constitution.” Compl., ¶ 54; see also PI Mem. at 1. That sentence states in relevant part that the President “shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and . . . be elected[] as follows: [¶] Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . . .” U.S. Const., art. II, § 1.

Plaintiffs somehow interpret this straightforward passage to mean that state legislatures alone must certify Presidential votes and Presidential electors after each election, and that Governors or other entities have no constitutionally permitted role. See Compl., ¶ 55. As a result, state statutes that delegate the certification to the Secretary of State or the Governor or anyone else are invalid. Id., ¶ 58. That, however, is not at all what Article II says. The above-quoted language makes manifest that a state appoints electors in “such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” So if the legislature directs that the Governor, Secretary of State, or other executive-branch entity shall make the certification, that is entirely constitutional. This is precisely what has happened: in each of the five states, the legislature has passed a statute directing how votes are to be certified and electors selected. See Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 16-212(B); Ga. Code Ann. § 21-2-499(b); Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 168.46; Wis. Stat. Ann. § 7.70(5)(b); 25 Pa. Stat. § 3166.

For example, Georgia requires its Secretary of State to “certify the votes cast for all candidates . . . and lay the returns for presidential electors before the Governor. The Governor shall enumerate and ascertain the number of votes for each person so voted and shall certify the slates of presidential electors receiving the highest number of votes.” Ga. Code Ann. § 21-2-499(b). Similarly, under Michigan law, “the governor shall certify, under the seal of the state, to the United States secretary of state, the names and addresses of the electors of this state chosen as electors of president and vice-president of the United States.” Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 168.46. Plaintiffs’ theory that all of these laws are unconstitutional and that the Court should instead require state legislatures themselves to certify every Presidential election lies somewhere between a willful misreading of the Constitution and fantasy.

Plaintiffs readily acknowledge that their position also means that the Supreme Court’s decisions in Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), and Texas v. Pennsylvania, No. 155 (Orig.), 2020 WL 7296814 (U.S. Dec. 11, 2020), “are in constitutional error.” Compl., ¶ 76. They do not, however, explain how this District Court has authority to disregard Supreme Court precedent. Nor do they ever mention why they have waited until seven weeks after the election to bring this action and seek a preliminary injunction based on purportedly unconstitutional statutes that have existed for decades — since 1948 in the case of the federal ones. It is not a stretch to find a serious lack of good faith here. See Trump v. Wis. Elections Comm’n, No. 20-3414, 2020 WL 7654295, at *4 (7th Cir. Dec. 24, 2020).

Yet even that may be letting Plaintiffs off the hook too lightly. Their failure to make any effort to serve or formally notify any Defendant — even after reminder by the Court in its Minute Order — renders it difficult to believe that the suit is meant seriously. Courts are not instruments through which parties engage in such gamesmanship or symbolic political gestures. As a result, at the conclusion of this litigation, the Court will determine whether to issue an order to show cause why this matter should not be referred to its Committee on Grievances for potential discipline of Plaintiffs’ counsel.

IV. Conclusion

As Plaintiffs have established no likelihood of success on the merits here, the Court will deny their Motion for Preliminary Injunction. A contemporaneous Order so stating will issue this day.

/s/ James E. Boasberg

JAMES E. BOASBERG
United States District Judge

Date: January 4, 2021

[Econoline]

To repurpose a previous Trump campaign slogan: "LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP!"

Yes please, and soon.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Ooh that's harsh. I do like that last sentence in the Analysis section.

[ex-khobar Andy]

CNN are stating that Biden has nominated Merrick Garland for AG.

I had hoped that he would nominate him at the first opportunity for SCOTUS. This is just better, way better.

In your face, McConnell!!!!!

Let's see Sally Yates in there somewhere, too.

[Sue U]

CNN are stating that Biden has nominated Merrick Garland for AG.

I had hoped that he would nominate him at the first opportunity for SCOTUS. This is just better, way better.

In your face, McConnell!!!!!

Let's see Sally Yates in there somewhere, too.

At 68, Garland is too old to be a SCOTUS nominee. He is doing fine work on the DC Circuit and should stay there. Not sure he is a great pick for AG. (Preet Bharara might have been a fun choice. Also the current Cali AG, Xavier Becerra.)

[Scooter]

It's worth it for the fork in the eye it gives to McConnell, plus he can be replaced on the DC Circuit with a 40 year old who is redder than a rose.

[BoSoxGal]

Preet Bharara is 52; he’d be a wonderful choice for the federal bench. And the next SCOTUS vacancy?

(He would’ve been a great choice for AG. Garland is an interesting one - from what I’ve read about him he seems the model of integrity and that will sure be a sea change after the last 4 years.)