Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch was tapped by President Trump to fill the seat left vacant by Antonin Scalia’s death over a year ago. President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace Scalia nearly a year ago, but Republicans refused even to hold hearings, fearing that Garland would tip the ideological balance of the court to the left. Now Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is calling on Democratic lawmakers to refuse to vote on Gorsuch’s confirmation while the Trump administration is under FBI investigation. For more, we speak with Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and with Elliot Mincberg, former chief counsel for oversight and investigations of the House Judiciary Committee.
TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: Well, on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on the Senate to delay a vote on Gorsuch for as long as the FBI is investigating the Trump campaign.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: You can bet, if the shoe were on the other foot and a Democratic president was under investigation by the FBI, the Republicans would be howling at the moon about filling a Supreme Court seat in such circumstances. After all, they stopped a president who wasn’t under investigation from filling a seat with nearly a year left in his presidency. It is unseemly to be moving forward so fast on confirming a Supreme Court justice with a lifetime appointment, while this big gray, gray cloud of an FBI investigation hangs over the presidency.
AMY GOODMAN: Elliot Mincberg, what about this, to delay this whole thing while there’s an FBI investigation?
ELLIOT MINCBERG: I think Senator Schumer has a very good point. The rush that Republicans are pushing to get Gorsuch on the Supreme Court — they want to get him on by early April, which would be almost record time — is quite unseemly under these circumstances. And Senator Schumer has an excellent point, that we need to take our time and be careful, not only to be sure…