NANCY PULLS OUT ALL THE STOPS
Impeachment on table to block Don from filling court
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday refused to rule out using impeachment to block Senate Republicans from voting on President Trump’s nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court.
ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos raised the possibility with Pelosi that the Democrat-controlled House would move to impeach Trump or Attorney General William Barr to stop the Senate from voting on a court nominee during a lame-duck session.
“Well, we have our options. We have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now, but the fact is we have a big challenge in our country,” Pelosi said on the host’s show, “This Week.”
“This president has threatened to not even accept the results of the election with statements that he and his henchmen have made.”
The California Democrat said that members of Congress “take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. We have a responsibility to meet the needs of the American people.”
“So, right now, our main goal — and I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg would want that to be — would be to protect the integrity of the election as we protect the American people from the coronavirus,” Pelosi said as the US neared 200,000 recorded deaths in the pandemic.
“So, again, when people say, what can I do? You can vote. You can get out the vote, and you can do so as soon as possible.”
Trump said over the weekend that he would nominate someone to fill Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat this week, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would have the GOP-controlled Senate take it up this fall.
The Trump campaign said the president was within his rights.
“When there’s a Supreme Court vacancy, the president selects a nominee and the Senate provides advice and consent. That’s what the Constitution says, and those are the only rules,” spokesman Tim Murtaugh said in a statement.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said a nomination would be “consistent with the precedent” and dismissed criticism from Democrats still fuming that McConnell refused for 11 months to allow a vote on Merrick Garland, then-President Barack Obama’s nominee in 2016. McConnell has said 2020 is different.
“But now when you have both parties in the White House and the Senate, historically the confirmation goes forward, and that’s what’s gonna happen here,” Barrasso told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
On “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace asked Sen. Tom Cotton about his 2016 comment that the Senate should not take up Garland’s nomination. The Arkansas Republican said the GOP has a mandate.
“In 2014, the American people elected a Republican majority to the Senate to put the brakes on President Obama’s judicial nominations,” he said. “In 2018, we had a referendum on this question. Just a month before the 2018 midterms, we had the vote on Justice [Brett] Kavanaugh. There could not have been a clearer mandate.”