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On June 23, White House aide Kathleen Marshall, who works in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, wrote to a staffer in Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s D.C. office about a nomination for attorney Chad Meredith to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky,The Louisville Courier-Journalreported.
“To be nominated tomorrow: … Stephen Chad Meredith: candidate for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky,” Marshall wrote in an email given a subject line that indicated it was not intended to be widely distributed.
“Thanks, Kate. I’ll share the info and appreciate the heads up,” Coulter Minix, the Beshear staffer, replied, according to reports.
The next day, June 24, the Supreme Court announced its decision to overturnRoe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that granted women the right to an abortion in every state.
The decision sparked an uproar ofpublic protestsanddemands for elected Democrats, including the president, todo everything they could to protect abortion rights, which will now be determined at the state level.
Days later, on June 29, Marshall wrote a follow-up email to Minix.
“Sorry for not including this in the original email,” she wrote. “But I wanted to clarify that the email I sent was pre-decisional and privileged information. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you. Kate.”
Twice this week White House Press SecretaryKarine Jean-Pierredeclined to comment on the nomination.
“We make it a point here to not comment on any — on any vacancy, whether it is on the executive branch or judicial branch, especially those that have not — have not — the nomination has not been made yet,” she told reporters traveling on Air Force One Wednesday. “So I don’t have anything to say on that. It is something that we just don’t comment on.”
On Tuesday, she declined to say whether the president would appoint a federal judge who doesn’t support abortion rights.
“That’s a hypothetical that I can’t really speak to,” she said during the press briefing.
A member of the conservative Federalist Society who previously served as solicitor general in Kentucky and as a deputy counsel to the state’s former Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, Meredith defended a 2017 law that required doctors to perform ultrasounds on pregnant women seeking an abortion and to describe the images to patients before they have the procedure,HuffPost reports.
“If the president makes that nomination,” Beshear said last week, “it is indefensible.”
Yarmuth accused Biden of making a deal with Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky that included Meredith’s nomination in exchange for a promise not to hold up any other Biden nominees.
“Given that a judicial position isn’t currently open on the Eastern District Court, it’s clear that this is part of some larger deal on judicial nominations between the President and Mitch McConnell,” Yarmuth said in a statement, according to theWashington Post. “I strongly oppose this deal and Meredith being nominated for the position. That last thing we need is another extremist on the bench.”
A spokesperson for McConnell denied there was any agreement.
Beshear’s office initially declined to release its email correspondence with the White House about the Meredith nomination. After theThe Courier-Journalobtained the first email, the governor’s office released it and the follow-up on Tuesday.
The Washington Postand other news organizations obtained the emails Wednesday through a public records request.
source: people.com
