The White House said Friday that it welcomes a call from GOP Sen. Jeff Flake to Republican leaders to take up Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination because it looks as if Hillary Clinton is going to win the presidential contest.
“We obviously welcome the comments of Sen. Flake that he believes that’s what should happen,” presidential press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Friday. “He is somebody who has a special influence here because he servers on the Senate Judiciary Committee.”
“This is largely the case that we’ve been making or more than 200 day now, which is that Republicans in the Senate do have an obligation to do their job and to fulfill their responsibility to treat Chief Judge Garland fairly, meet with him and give him a hearing [and] a timely yes or no vote,” he said.
Earlier this week, the Washington Examiner asked Earnest whether the White House has an agreement with Hillary Clinton to re-nominate Garland, should Clinton win the presidency.
“No, we don’t,” Earnest said. “If the vacancy has not been filled when she takes office, she will be the president of the United States and she will be able to put forward whomever she believes should fill the vacancy, and I hasten to add, that she has said many times that the president made an excellent choice when nominating Merrick Garland.”
Earnest said President Obama would welcome Garland’s Senate confirmation during the lame-duck session.
“They should consider his nomination, they should meet with him, they should give him a hearing, and they should give him a vote,” he said. “And the fact that he’s waited more than 200 days for that vote is appalling when you consider the credentials he has.”
Flake, a Republican from Arizona, in an interview Thursday said he is urging Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to do an about-face and try to push through Garland’s nomination because Clinton appears to have a wide lead in the election and Republicans could face a more liberal nominee than Garland from Clinton next year.
“If Hillary Clinton is president-elect, then we should move forward with hearings in the lame duck. That’s what I’m encouraging my colleagues to do,” he said.
The White House also took issue with recent comments from Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who has refused to schedule a hearing for Garland since Obama nominated him months ago.
Grassley, in an interview with Radio Iowa Tuesday, indicated that Clinton won’t face the same sort of GOP blockade of her high court nominee.
“If that new president happens to be Hillary, we can’t just simply stonewall,” he said.
The Iowa Republican has said in February that “it only makes sense that the Senate put off consideration of a Supreme Court nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia until next year because 2016 is an election year.”
Although it is unlikely, Grassley also said at the time that Senate Republicans could change their position if enough senators push for a hearing for Garland after the November election, opening the door to a confirmation in the lame-duck session should Trump lose to Clinton.
McConnell, however, has repeatedly ruled out such a scenario.
