Napolitano: Highly Unusual for Nominee to Engage in Public Lobbying

Amid the already heated political debate surrounding the open Supreme Court seat, President Obama has nominated Judge Merrick Garland to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last month.

“It sounded like an emotional plea for the propriety of his nomination. Obviously it was something the White House wrote or the White House approved.  It is highly unusual for the nominee him or herself to engage in any type of public lobbying and really should be reserved for behind-the-scenes with the members of the Senate.” FNC senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano told the FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney.

Napolitano continued, “It is extremely unusual for a sitting judge who is regulated by what we call the cannons of judicial ethics about what he or she may say in public and may not say in public.”

Napolitano then compared it to Scalia’s nomination by President Reagan.

“Could you imagine Ronald Reagan calling Justice Scalia, Antonin and saying, ‘okay, the microphone is yours?’ A different era, a different president, different morals, different values; but this was most unusual what we just saw.”

Napolitano weighed in on the potential fallout from Obama’s nomination of Garland.

“He has taken a good and decent man, nearly universally respected in the legal and judicial community and put him out there as a piñata.”