BREAKING: Obama to Nominate Merrick Garland for Supreme Court, AP Reports [View all]
Source: Associated Press
Obama Said to Choose Garland to Replace Scalia on Supreme Court
Greg Stohr
Mike Dorning
Steven T. Dennis
March 16, 2016 — 10:05 AM EDT Updated on March 16, 2016 — 10:30 AM EDT
President Barack Obama plans to nominate Merrick Garland, chief judge of the federal appeals court in Washington and one of the most respected jurists in the country, to fill the U.S. Supreme Court seat opened by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, according to a White House official and other people familiar with the matter.
Republicans have vowed to obstruct any Obama nominee for Scalia’s seat. The president plans to announce the nomination at 11 a.m. Washington time in the White House Rose Garden. The people who identified Garland requested anonymity ahead of the president’s announcement.
In a statement earlier Wednesday, Obama said his nominee will be "eminently qualified" to join the nation’s highest court, has an "unquestionable mastery of law" and "unimpeachable credentials." He asked for a fair hearing and up-or-down vote in the Senate.
"That is what the Constitution dictates, and that’s what the American people expect and deserve," the president said.
Garland will be an ideologically moderate nominee who in other contexts would have broad bipartisan appeal. When Obama considered Garland for a high court vacancy in 2010, Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, called the judge "terrific" and said he could be confirmed to the Supreme Court "virtually unanimously."
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/trackers/2016-03-16/obama-to-nominate-merrick-garland-for-supreme-court-ap-reports-iluwzj0o
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