Alberto Gonzales, who served as White House counsel and attorney general under George W. Bush, is one of the handful of Republicans who has broken ranks to say that President Obama does indeed have the right to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
In an interview with Newsmax TV yesterday, Gonzales repeated his argument and skewered the claim from Sen. Chuck Grassley , chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that it is the Senate’s “standard practice” not to confirm Supreme Court justices during a presidential election year.
“If there is such a standard practice within the Senate, it’s one that I’m not aware of and I was not made aware of when I was White House counsel or as attorney general,” Gonzales told Newsmax’s Ed Berliner. “Again, not having served in the Senate, I can’t speak with authority as to what is standard practice, but certainly if that is the standard practice, that was never communicated to the Bush White House or the Bush administration.”
