While President Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis put Washington on hold, Trump’s Supreme Court Justice nominee has tested negative for the virus, and Chairman of the Judiciary Committee Lindsey Graham plans to move ahead with the confirmation process.
The confirmation process, which will formally begin on October 12th, has already in many ways began. ACB has been on Capitol Hill meeting with Republican senators. This caused a slight worry that because of her proximity to President Trump, who tested positive, there would be a chance she was spreading the virus. But after the negative test result, it’s full steam ahead.
In an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “We can move forward. Our biggest enemy obviously is the coronavirus, keeping everybody healthy and well and in place to do our job,. We don’t anticipate any kind of unanticipated event that could throw us off schedule.”
McConnell said that because of the coronavirus threat, the hearings will be smaller and may be done mostly remotely. He said, “The members have some of them done their interviews in previous hearings remotely. This sort of underscores the need to do that. I think every precaution needs to be taken because we don’t anticipate any Democratic support at all … and therefore everybody needs to be in an all hands on deck mindset.”
Graham mirrored McConnell’s sentiments, sayin that the confirmation process is “on track.” The confirmation vote will take place on October 22nd, just days before the first presidential election.
