Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) reportedly dropped out of the race to become the Democrats’ ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee due to pressure from former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Nadler left the race and endorsed Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) as his replacement, NBC News reported.
It came just two days after Raskin announced he would challenge Nadler for the position.
77-year-old Nadler has been in Congress since 1992 and has been a leader on the Judiciary Committee since 2019.
Now, Raskin is expected to take the position as there are no challengers with Nadler out of the way.
The powerful position is meant to keep the FBI and Department of Justice in check.
Nadler announced his intentions Thursday in a letter to fellow lawmakers, complete with hysterical predictions about President Donald Trump.
“As our country faces the return of Donald Trump, and the renewed threats to our democracy and our way of life that he represents, I am very confident that Jamie would ably lead the Judiciary Committee as we confront this growing danger,” Nadler wrote.
“Therefore, I have decided not to run for Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee in the 119th Congress.”
The Democratic Party has singled Raskin out as their next big thing.
This was made known when then-House Speaker Pelosi chose him to be the lead prosecutor for Trump’s second impeachment over the Jan. 6, 2021, protest at the Capitol.
Raskin served as an “impeachment manager” against Trump.
Pelosi also appointed him to head the Democrats’ anti-Trump “House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 Attack.”
At the time, Democrats considered this their ace in the hole for getting rid of Trump for good, and Raskin’s appointment was a signal of his future importance.
Now it has emerged that Pelosi strongarmed Nadler out of the race for Judiciary Committee leadership.
Pelosi was a major force behind the scenes pushing for Raskin to replace Nadler as ranking member, according to The New York Times.
Nadler withdrew from the contest on Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters after Nadler stood down, Pelosi was asked if she was supporting challenges to the existing ranking members of House committees.
“Some,” she replied, according to Axios.
“I don’t know all of them,” Pelosi added.
It comes just months after Pelosi helped engineer the departure of President Joe Biden from the race for the White House.
When his anti-Trump efforts garnered national attention, Raskin parlayed the notoriety into a 2022 book, “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy.”
He wrote about the interplay between grieving his 25-year-old’s December 31, 2020 suicide and the Jan. 6 protests less than a week later, which he frames as an “insurrection.”
Raskin also draws on his fight with cancer twice.
He claims he battled cancer to oppose “authoritarianism and MAGA’s campaign to dismantle our Constitutional system and the rule of law as we know it.”
“I hope to be at the center of this fight and — as someone who has battled cancer and chemotherapy — I can tell you that I will never, never surrender,” Raskin said.
This narrative has cemented Raskin’s position as a politician to watch in the coming years, especially considering they have no standouts to speak of besides him.
Their desperation is palpable, but it seems Raskin is doing all he can to rally excitement for Democrats.
With Raskin a shoo-in for the leadership position, his current post as the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee will become vacant.
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) has already jumped in his grave, but he may face a challenge from “Squad” member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
The New York Democrat said she was “receiving a lot of input from my colleagues, and we’ll be making a decision” but has yet to commit to putting her name forward.
For his part, Connolly argued that he was the better choice because of his experience running another Oversight Committee.
“To me, it’s not generational,” Connolly said.
“It’s about experience and record and capability, that’s how I got to present it.”
“And she’s a new talent and has a lot of promise, but I’m the only one in the race … who, in fact, has a subcommittee,” he added.
“I’ve invested in the committee. I think that’s really important.”
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