US President Barack Obama has nominated Merrick Garland, a federal appeals court judge in Washington, to replace the late Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat on the US Supreme Court.
Obama picked Garland on Wednesday, setting up a nearly unprecedented political fight with a Republican-controlled Senate that has vowed to block his nomination the country’s highest court.
Garland, 63, is the chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He has served on that court since 1997.
“Today, I am nominating Chief Judge Merrick Brian Garland to join the Supreme Court,” Obama said from the White House Rose Garden with Garland and Vice President Joe Biden standing alongside him.
“I’ve selected a nominee who is recognized not only as one of America’s sharpest legal minds, but someone who brings to his work a spirit of decency, honesty, integrity, even-handedness and excellence,” Obama said.
Garland worked as a federal prosecutor in…