Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) admitted this week that he killed the nomination of a pro-life conservative federal judge because Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) failed to consult him, even though he supported the judge.
Paul said in a statement that he “supported” Chad Meredith’s nomination to the U.S. District Court vacancy in Kentucky’s Eastern District. Meredith, whose nomination was part of a deal that Republicans made with President Joe Biden, is a member of the Federalist Society, a group that studies and advocates for an originalist interpretation of the Constitution.
“I think he would make a good judge,” Paul told USA Today. “Unfortunately, instead of communicating and lining up support for him, Senator McConnell chose to cut a secret deal with the White House that fell apart.”
Paul told Politico that McConnell was “to blame for tanking this because he tried to do [it] secretly.”
“We have no reason to be opposed to Chad Meredith, other than we want at least the courtesy of the … minority leader, thinking that he’s not so important that he doesn’t have to talk to his fellow state senator, that’s all we wanted,” Paul continued. “This was a secret deal by McConnell.”
"We have no reason to be opposed to Chad Meredith, other than we want at least the courtesy of the … minority leader, thinking that he's not so important that he doesn't have to talk to his fellow state senator, that's all we wanted."
"This was a secret deal by McConnell"
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) July 18, 2022
Last week, McConnell told the New York Times that Paul’s opposition to the nomination was “utterly pointless.”
“The net result of this is it has prevented me from getting my kind of judge out of a liberal Democratic president,” he said.
An adviser for the minority leader commented that Paul was doing Democrats and the White House “a huge favor” by tanking Meredith’s nomination. “I suspect the White House is relieved; I suspect Dick Durbin is relieved; and I suspect that the political people in the Biden team are relieved that Rand Paul blew this up,” the McConnell adviser said, according to USA Today. “He did them a huge favor.”
Between 2015 and 2019, Meredith was the chief deputy counsel for Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin. He has been described as strongly pro-life.