President-elect Joe Biden confirmed on Thursday that he will appoint Merrick Garland as attorney general and attorney general, who was denied a seat of the Supreme Court by Republicans five years ago.
Garland, a judge on the Court of Appeal, is recognized as a moderate liberal and has no alignment with any political party.
In 2016, however, Republican senators blocked for eight months then-President Barack Obama’s request to nominate him to the Supreme Court, allowing President Donald Trump to appoint a Conservative magistrate to fill the vacancy the following year.
Garland and other key Justice Department officials will be introduced by Biden on Thursday, the president-elect’s transition team said in a note.
Garland, 68, has a long career as a private sector attorney and was a former Attorney General.
In 1993, he was named assistant deputy attorney general in the Department of Justice, where he handled serious national security matters, including the Oklahoma City bombings and the Atlanta-96 Olympics.
In 1997, President Bill Clinton appointed him a member of the Washington Court of Appeals, and his confirmation received wide support from both Democratic and Republican senators.
He became Chief Justice of that court in 2013, YeIn March 2016, Obama chose him for a position in the Supreme Court after the death of Antonin Scalia. But that nomination did not go well.
His new nomination shouldn’t pose any major problems in the Senate, where the Democrats now have a small majority and where he is likely to gain Republican support as well.