Mitch McConnell trolls Obama with '404' joke about blocked Supreme Court pick Merrick Garland
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell launched his re-election campaign website on Wednesday with a bit of political barb, aimed at liberals still fuming over his blocking of former President Barack Obama's final pick for the Supreme Court.
When visitors reach a "404" page – basically, when they land on a part of the website that doesn't exist – it features a background of Judge Merrick Garland standing next to Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden.
"Oops this page doesn’t exist. But just in case, go donate and make sure it doesn’t come back," the McConnell website says.
Obama nominated Garland, who is considered a moderate on the federal bench, to fill a vacancy on the high court in 2016 after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative stalwart.
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But McConnell immediately declared that there would be no appointment by Obama given that it was a presidential election year. At the time, McConnell's decision created a furor among Democrats in Washington and across the nation.
The seat was ultimately filled in 2017 by Justice Neil Gorsuch, after being nominated by President Donald Trump.
"He thought everybody would get a chuckle out of it," Josh Holmes, a McConnell adviser, told the Courier-Journal. "Sen. McConnell has always made it a practice to infuse a little humor into the rough and tumble world of politics."
McConnell has made reshaping the federal courts a focal point of his legacy since Trump took office in 2017. Recently, the GOP leader detonated the "nuclear option" in the Senate to make it easier to push through certain judicial and other low-level appointees.
After Justice Brett Kavanaugh ascended to the U.S. Supreme Court last year, McConnell said those turbulent confirmation hearings were "the single most important thing I've been involved in in my career."
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The Kentucky Republican has repeatedly defended his decision to keep Garland off the high court, which would have tilted it in a more liberal direction.
McConnell, who is seeking an eighth term, wields a 53-47 majority in the Senate.
Former Marine pilot Amy McGrath and sports radio host Matt Jones are Democrats rumored to be considering a run against McConnell in 2020.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Mitch McConnell trolls Obama with '404' joke about blocked Supreme Court pick Merrick Garland
