Welcome to Covid Court, where POLITICO’s Renu Rayasam issues rulings on how to get through the pandemic without losing your mind.
Cruz, meanwhile, sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), signed by Hawley, Cotton and six other Republicans on the committee, that signaled he plans to press Garland on whether DOJ will investigate New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s handling of nursing home deaths from Covid.
Beyond signing that letter, however, neither Hawley nor Cotton have offered hints about how they plan to handle the Garland confirmation. Both of their offices did not respond to inquiries about Monday’s hearing. But Hawley developed a reputation in the previous Congress for aggressively questioning Trump nominees and went so far as to torpedo judicial picks he deemed insufficiently conservative. Cotton, who joined Judiciary just this year, is already a staunch critic of Biden’s immigration policies.
Meanwhile, senior Senate Republicans who opposed…
— to www.politico.com