Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said Monday that there’d be “no problem” with presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump nominating someone to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
“There’s no problem with Trump appointing people to the Supreme Court,” Grassley told the Associated Press.
Grassley noted Trump’s insistence that he would select conservative judges and his mention of William Pryor as a possible candidate, the AP reported. Pryor, a former Alabama attorney general whom former President George W. Bush appointed to a U.S. appeals court, has called Roe vs. Wade the “worst abomination” in constitutional law. He also once angered Republicans by supporting the ouster of Alabama’s chief justice for refusing to follow a federal order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state’s judicial building.
Grassley is among those Senate Republicans who’ve said they want the next president, not President Obama, to select the Supreme Court nominee. But Trump’s apparent pathway to the GOP nomination after winning the Indiana primary last week has spurred some to urge a lame-duck vote on Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, if Trump looks poised to lose the general election.
Grassley previously was hesitant about the prospect of Trump selecting a judge for the job, calling it a “gamble.”
