Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans led by Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) invited the Republican Attorney General of Alabama to testify Thursday against the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Steve Marshall, in a contentious back-and-forth with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), refused repeatedly to state that President Joe Biden was “duly elected” or is “lawfully serving.”
Here’s the text of the exchange, via Politico (video below):
Whitehouse: Is Joseph R. Biden of Delaware the duly elected and lawfully serving president of the United States of America?
Marshall: He is the president of this country.
Whitehouse: Is he the duly elected and lawfully serving president of the United States?
Marshall: He is the president of our country.
Whitehouse: Are you answering that omitting the language ‘duly elected and lawfully serving’ purposefully?
Marshall: I’m answering the question. He is the president of the United States.
Whitehouse: And you have no view as to whether or not he was duly elected or is lawfully serving?
Marshall: I’m telling you he is the president of the United States.
“Marshall was the head of the Rule of Law Defense Fund,” Politico notes, calling it “an affiliate of the Republican Attorneys General Association, on Jan. 6, 2021.”
“That group sent a robocall that day encouraging people to march to the Capitol preceding the attack.”
As Alabama Attorney General Marshall successfully challenged his state’s move to enact curbside voting for some voters during the COVID pandemic in 2020. He was able to get the U.S. Supreme Court to block curbside voting.
Watch the exchange between Marshall and Senator Whitehouse: