Chief Justice Roberts in the hot seat, asked to launch inquiry into McConnell's court packing scheme

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Judge Sri Srinivasan, has requested an inquiry into whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and retired Judge Thomas B. Griffith engineered the latter's retirement so McConnell could install a protégé. Srinivasan has asked Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to assign the inquiry to another circuit.

This comes as advocacy group Demand Justice calls for a delay in the confirmation hearing of Judge Justin Walker, a former intern of McConnell's and an extreme partisan who was a fixture on Fox News defending now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his show-hearings. "Justin Walker's nomination was already controversial, but this emerging investigation means an even darker cloud is hanging over his appointment," Demand Justice founder Brian Fallon said in a statement released following the announcement of the inquiry. Walker's nomination is controversial because he is not just an extreme partisan but is so woefully inexperienced in conducting law that the American Bar Association deemed him unqualified for the job McConnell handed to him last fall, on the district court where he now serves.

"The hearing on Walker's nomination should not go forward until we know the truth about what ethical lines Mitch McConnell crossed to get Walker this seat," Fallon continued. "At the very least, McConnell should come clean about whether and when he contacted Judge Thomas Griffith prior to his sudden retirement."

McConnell's court packing efforts have made news before, including his campaign of leaning on Republican federal judges to get them to retire so he can install very young and extreme partisans in their seats. McConnell and Trump have already filled more than one-quarter of the appeals court seats, but McConnell won't rest until he's got the maximum possible, even if that means prying out Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II-appointed judges.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/5/1942748/-Federal-judge-launches-inquiry-into-McConnell-s-court-packing-efforts?detail=emaildkre

[crickets]

1. K&R for visibility.

[2naSalit]

2. K&R

[spanone]

3. ⭐️⭐️K&R⭐️⭐️

[Baitball Blogger]

4. k & r

[lagomorph777]

5. After McGrath replaces McConnell, and Biden replaces Trump, we can use McConnell's rules.

We'll pack the courts and expand them so that all of McConnell's stooges will be outnumbered, sitting on multi-judge panels. And we'll investigate the living crap out of each and every one of them, in preparation for mass impeachments.

SCROTUS will be expanded to 15.

Lifetime appointments will be ended. 5-year terms, including SCROTUS.

[calimary]

13. And we SHOULD use McConnell's rules.

SICK AND TIRED of "fighting fair."

"Fighting Fair" demands a level playing field. Where both sides are evenly matched and have legitimately equal chances to win.

When one side refuses to play fair, in other words - demanding the right to cheat, to tilt the playing field, rig the game, to put a thumb on the scale, then there's no longer such a thing as "fighting fair." That's GONE. Then it's not a mere game anymore. And there is no "playing". If no rules apply, then no rules apply to OUR side either.

If that's the way the game is played now, and we say we want to play to win, THIS is how you win, because if you want to play to win, these days? THIS is how you have to play. unfortunately. If you play it straight and the other side cheats and wins, then there's a different "game" to play now, and it requires different rules. Basically, seems to me, if we have to play nasty because the other guys play nasty, and we have to re-tilt the playing field, what's actually happening is, ironically, leveling the playing field once again. On their level, yes. But it's no longer tilted in one side's favor.

Seems to me, anyway.

[Grokenstein]

23. Total agreement.

I want them to think--because it's worked for them in the past--that dropping their bloody clubs and falling to the ground clutching their elbows and sniveling, "Wait, I'm hurrrt!!" will cause us to cease fighting and show mercy while they look for an opportunity to knife us in the back.

I want to see the looks on their faces when it doesn't work this time.

[calimary]

26. So do I, my friend!

Sometimes I wonder if it'll knock them so off their game if we switch tactics and go for blood. I suspect they don't expect us to play mean and shrewd and calculating - like THEY do. They expect us to be patsies who cave and want to keep our powder dry and not make waves and "play nice" and give up easy. And give in.

Well THOSE days should be OVER!!! And done AND buried! In CONCRETE at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, under a few miles of heavy seawater!

I think it'd be strategically smart to knock them off their game. They're used to the way things are played. They're used to the way WE play it. So we should play differently! It WILL knock them off their game, even if it's only briefly. They'll have to go back and try to rethink because they don't have a comeback for this different kind of behavior from us. They've never needed one. And I think there's more than a few of them who are as smug and complacent as hell by now.

And that's when they're vulnerable.

[BigmanPigman]

16. Hell yes!

Expand the SCOTUS! Has anyone tried that before?

[lagomorph777]

19. FDR. It didn't go well, due to Congressional opposition.

We have to elect a friendly Congress. There's no Constitutional spec for the number of judges or justices.

[BigmanPigman]

22. I thought of him too

since I watched Ken Burns: The Roosevelts last week. His Conservative leaning, Dem Congress didn't support him, and of course SCOTUS didn't. But I think his plan was to make the justices leave by a certain age (he said they were all too old/conservative) and wanted age limits. He got the last laugh though...by the time he died he had replaced 7 justices.

If we can get the House and Senate and POTUS I think we should go for it, and also work on the Fairness Doctrine and Fux Ruse.

[stopdiggin]

6. waste of time

unless there is evidence (so far not even suggested at) of real financial incentive or other quid pro quo, what is being alleged here is standard political maneuvering. Nothing illegal, and a burden to suggest it even rises to level of unethical. Show us where the court before has balked at the mere outside "suggestion" of a judge stepping down. In fact it happens routinely. As such, this is more PR than actual "inquiry."

(note: Not necessarily opposed to such a media campaign. Particularly in holding McConnell's feet to the fire. But it IS a media campaign.)

[reACTIONary]

24. I agree.. PR maneuver....

.... Wouldn't call it a "stunt" but it's much the same.

[Harry Walpurgisnacht]

7. Ooh, That's Gotta Hurt!

One word, JR: LEG-A-CY. . .

[calimary]

14. Welcome to DU, Harry Walpurgisnacht.

Methinks history won't be kind.

But then again, that may depend on who's writing the history books.

[scarletwoman]

8. It seems highly unlikely that anything will come of this. Why would Roberts care? (nt)

[Bettie]

9. It's good that someone asked for an investigation

but I suspect that Roberts is all in with packing the courts with unqualified right wing operatives and will simply say "Move along, nothing to see here".

[redstatebluegirl]

10. K&R

[bucolic_frolic]

11. CJ Roberts has made lofty statements about nonpartisanship in the judiciary

and I do believe him. But I'll believe him a whole lot more if he carries this to the max, which he might, because now that the courts are packed and Democrats might gain the majority so they can pack the courts too, well, it's time to put an end to that way of doing business so we can have fairness and equality, right?

[FakeNoose]

15. The Repukes only believe in fairness and equality

... when Democrats are in power. So yeah, it's time for them to start making some noise. Pretty soon we'll hear them yakking about the deficit too, now that they've sent everything to hell.

[Bev54]

12. Unfortunately the hearing is going forward

I am listening to it right now, this guy is the epitome of white privilege, no experience, religious zealot with the personality of a wet dishcloth.

[aggiesal]

17. This may not end up going anywhere ...

but the problem I see, is when the majority party in the Senate is different than the party in the White House.

When republicans were the majority in the Senate, while Obama was President, McConnell would not fill any judicial vacancies, including the Supreme Court seat.
He ceded his job as the Majority Leader to fill vacant judicial seats so that he can packed them when the party in the White House matched his party.

[Grins]

18. Expect nothing.

Roberts is, and always has been, a Reich-wing conservative hack. But I saw this the other day when reading up on the Reich packing the courts with “activist judges” (Remember them? Remember when the Reich claimed to hate them?):

Justice Stevens on the real “loser” after Bush v. Gore:

“It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.”

[Pepsidog]

20. May not go anywhere but payback is a bitch.

[Alpeduez21]

21. the left keeps expecting the right

To act with honesty and integrity. To be shamed by their criminality. To act like morality exists in their political spectrum. The right is full of pieces of shit. When they go low kick the ever living shit out of them. This sternly worded letter crap only makes the left feel slightly better without accomplishing anything. The right needs to be defeated. After defeat the left needs to manipulate the system so those bastards can never have power again

[Butterflylady]

25. Why do you think

McConnell puts up with orange faces crap. He knows rumps time is coming to an end.

[Igel]

27. Fallon had to speak carefully.

As did his channeler.

"... Walker's nomination is controversial because he is not just an extreme partisan but is so woefully inexperienced in conducting law that the American Bar Association deemed him unqualified for the job McConnell handed to him last fall"

v

https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/aba-gives-dc-circuit-nominee-well-qualified-rating-after-finding-him-not-qualified-for-trial-bench


I'd also note that Fallon's really quite changed the meaning of "court-packing".