GOP Senator Who Rushed Through Trump's SCOTUS Pick Gets Slammed for Wanting to Delay Biden's

With the impending retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer, President Joe Biden announced U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as his nomination to the Supreme Court.

Breyer won't officially retire until the end of this year's Supreme Court term on October 3rd, but Biden is still urging the Senate Judiciary Committee to begin hearings on Judge Jackson's nomination in a deliberate and timely manner.

This didn't sit well with Senate Judiciary's ranking member, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who said in a statement:

“We should not sacrifice the integrity of our constitutional advice and consent responsibility to meet an arbitrary timeline. The Court’s next term doesn’t begin until October, so there’s absolutely no need to rush."

What Grassley was apparently forgetting is that the most recent Supreme Court nominee to answer questions from the Judiciary Committee operated on an entirely different timeline. Now-Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court in just one month, a far cry from the average time of nine weeks.

Judge Jackson's process is already scheduled to take longer than Barrett's as it is. While Justice Barrett began committee hearings just over two weeks after Trump announced her as his pick, Judge Jackson's first Senate Judiciary hearing won't be until March 21—a full 24 days after Biden's announcement.

Social media users were quick to call Grassley out on what they called a double standard.

Senate Republicans no longer have the majority they enjoyed in recent years, and can't do much to dictate the timeline of Judge Jackson's confirmation. The floor vote on Supreme Court nominations is also exempt from the Senate filibuster, thanks to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

With this context, other social media users didn't care too much about Grassley's reservations.

Judge Jackson has been confirmed by the Senate to lower courts multiple times, and her Supreme Court nomination is expected to gain bipartisan support.