McConnell: Membership in Discriminatory Clubs Is ‘a Disqualifier’ for Nominees Before Judiciary Committee That Whitehouse Sits On

On Wednesday’s broadcast of Fox News Radio’s “Guy Benson Show,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) discussed the controversy over Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-RI) beach club membership by stating that the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Whitehouse is a member of, looks at whether judicial nominees have memberships in private clubs that discriminate as part of the vetting process, and nominees who don’t resign from such organizations don’t have their nominations acted on.

McConnell said, “[Y]ou might be interested to know that when we vet, on the Judiciary Committee — upon which Sheldon sits — when they vet judges, one of the things they look for [is] do they have private club memberships that discriminate? And if they don’t resign from them, they don’t act on them. So, I think, in a large part of our country, including there on the Judiciary Committee when they vet judges — in fact, I remember a judge a number of years ago, a good guy, who resigned from a club…otherwise, he wouldn’t have been confirmed.”

He added, “I don’t have any particular observation about Sheldon. What I do know is that, for a long time, on the Judiciary Committee, as part of the vetting process for federal judges, this question is asked and if they don’t — if they belong to one…they’re given the opportunity to resign, typically, but it’s a disqualifier to be a federal district judge.”

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