Peeved Rand Paul tanks Biden's anti-abortion judge pick over Mitch McConnell 'secret deal'

WASHINGTON — Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., blamed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for the collapse of a deal with President Joe Biden to nominate an anti-abortion, Republican attorney as a federal judgein Kentucky.

Paul accused McConnell of lacking the "courtesy" to include him in efforts for Biden to nominate Chad Meredith to filla U.S. District Court vacancy in Kentucky's Eastern District.

"I support Chad Meredith and supported him when he was considered for a different position. I think he would make a good judge," Paul told The Courier Journal and USA TODAY in a written statement. "Unfortunately, instead of communicating and lining up support for him, Senator McConnell chose to cut a secret deal with the White House that fell apart."

As a result, Paul said he did not return Meredith's "blue slip" to the White House, effectively killing the nomination plans.

“McConnell's to blame for tanking this because he tried to do it secretly," Paul told Politico Monday.

Paul's remarks exposed a rift between Kentucky's two Republican U.S. senators that spoiled a rare opportunity to get a conservative attorney nominated for a lifetime judicial appointment by a Democratic president.

More news: Biden abandons plan to nominate anti-abortion, GOP federal judge who McConnell pushed

'He did them a huge favor'

An adviser to McConnell told USA TODAY the two senators worked together on several judicial and federal nominees when President Donald Trump was in office.

But that opportunity doesn't exist when the president is from the opposing party. In those circumstances, the president typically chooses the nominee without the home-state senators' input, said the adviser, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the relationship between the two senators.

Meredith is the type of nominee conservatives would have been overjoyed to see, the adviser said, particularly under a Democratic president and Senate.

"I suspect the White House is relieved; I suspect Dick Durbin is relieved; and I suspect that the political people in the Biden team are relieved that Rand Paul blew this up," the McConnell adviser said.

"He did them a huge favor."

How the 'blue slip' works

Traditionally, home-state senators return what's known as a "blue slip" to indicate support for federal nominees for district judges. Republicans abandoned the "blue slip" practice for appeals court judges during the Trump administration but kept it for district court judges. Democrats have kept the same practice.

The White House cited Paul's failure to return Meredith's blue slip on Friday in announcing Biden would not formally nominate Meredith to the bench.

As first reported exclusively by The Courier Journal, a White House official informed Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear's office in a June 23 email that it planned to nominate Meredith the next day to a U.S. District Court judgeship in Kentucky's Eastern District.

The next morning, however, the U.S. Supreme Court released its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion and sending shock waves across the nation. Meredith's intended nomination was never announced or submitted.

More news: Exclusive: Email shows Biden was set to nominate anti-abortion GOP judge on day of Supreme Court Roe ruling

Biden's planned nomination triggered a strong backlash from Democrats and progressives furious that Biden would choose a Federalist Society member who has argued against abortion access.

U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., expressed outrage with the pick, saying that Biden must have worked a deal with McConnell so he wouldn't hold up future White House nominations.

McConnell told the New York Times "there was no deal" with Biden to trade a Meredith nomination for other considerations in the chamber, calling the president's willingness to nominate his favored conservative judge the kind of “collegiality” senators used to display.

"This was a personal friendship gesture," McConnell added.

McConnell also said he was "very surprised" that Paul expressed his opposition to a Meredith nomination.

How the deal came together

The McConnell adviser said the GOP leader contacted White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain in early 2022 and asked about a judicial appointment for Meredith.

The president's top aide came back saying they were willing to nominate him to the federal bench.

"People can claim whether it's good or bad, but two guys like Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden — he's as different from us politically as anything in the world — who would just say, 'Yeah, I'll do this,'" the adviser said. "It's a throwback to a different era."

Andrew Bates, deputy White House press secretary, declined to comment on the McConnell adviser's account of events. Klain did not respond to a request to comment.

The adviser said McConnell never offered a deal in return for nominating Meredith, and the White House didn't ask for anything in return. But he said for Paul to "sabotage this was stunning."

Several Senate Democrats l week said they would vote against a Meredith nomination, raising the prospects of the president’s own party blocking the pick if he moved forward.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not say Monday when asked why Biden planned to nominate Meredith in the first place. She reiterated Paul’s opposition and said she wasn’t aware of McConnell's claim that the nomination was a “personal friendship gesture” from Biden.

USA TODAY reporter Francesca Chambers contributed to this story.

Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rand Paul blames Mitch McConnell for 'tanking' Biden anti-abortion pick