“It’s been a long time coming and by now they should have told us it was going to be canceled,” Beshear said. Meredith has not been nominated to the court, but The Hill and other news organizations have obtained emails suggesting the White House was on the verge of nominating Meredith on the same day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on abortion rights . Meredith’s nomination was not made on June 24, the day of the Supreme Court decision, and has not been made since. A June 23 email from White House aide Kathleen Marshall to Coulter Minix, Beshear’s Washington, DC office director, had indicated that Meredith would be appointed the next day. A second email on June 29, also from Marshall to Minix, says the content in the first email was “prejudicial and privileged.” Meredith has previously worked on cases limiting access to abortion, including representing former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) in a case in which Planned Parenthood claimed it was not licensed to perform abortions in the state , thus breaking the law, according to the Louisville Courier Journal. Beshear and Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) are among the officials who have criticized any move to nominate Meredith. Yarmuth suggested that a plan to nominate Meredith could have been part of a deal with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to get judicial nominees through a closely divided Senate. At the press conference, Beshear focused on Meredith’s record in other cases and did not mention his anti-abortion stance, saying Meredith “is the deputy general counsel who worked for a pardon that allowed rapists and murderers to go free.” “The fact that this person assisted former Gov. Bevin with the worst abuse or misuse of government power certainly in my lifetime should be disqualifying,” Beshear said, referring to the pardons Meredith worked on with Bevin. Watch live: President Biden speaks on abortion access Watch live: White House press briefing Beshir criticized both Meredith and Bevin for granting clemency to an individual involved in the gang-rape of a minor that Beshir had prosecuted during his tenure as Kentucky attorney general. Beshear echoed the Biden administration’s claim that Meredith’s nomination is on hold and said he had “not received any definitive word” on the nomination. “I certainly hope they back off from it,” Beshear said. “Certainly you can expect any discussions about this, I will continue to tell them that this is not an acceptable nomination and I and the rest of Kentucky are against it.”
