Sen. Orrin Hatch said Wednesday he will thwart any attempts by Democrats to block the nomination of Brigham Young University general counsel Thomas Griffiths to the federal bench during this session of Congress.

Griffiths, who was counsel to the Senate during the impeachment of President Clinton, was one of 20 judges who failed to win Senate confirmation in the last Congress.

In December, President Bush renominated Griffiths to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which is considered the nation's second-most-influential court.

"We're going to get him through," Hatch said at a speech at Utah Valley State College. "He could eventually end up on the Supreme Court."