I'm a team player,' Kavanaugh asserts
Trump: Justice, family endured ‘terrible pain and suffering.’
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in —again at an event at the — White House on Monday night, but not before President Donald Trump criticized Kavanaugh’s opponents for a “campaign of personal destruction.”
“On behalf of the nation, I’d like to apologize to Brett and the entire Kavanaugh family for the terrible pain and suffering you’ve been forced to endure,” Trump said.
Trump added that “under historic scrutiny,” Kavanaugh was “proven innocent.”
After he was sworn in, Kavanaugh said the Supreme Court “is not a partisan or political institution,” and promised to “always be a team player on a team of nine.”
Kavanaugh described the confirmation process as “contentious and emotional” but said he has “no bitterness.”
The other eight justices were all in attendance for the swearing-in, which is entirely ceremonial. Kavanaugh officially became a member of the high court Saturday. The event is unusual for new justices. Only Samuel Alito and Stephen Breyer participated in a White House event after they had been sworn in and begun work as a justice, according to the court’s records on oath-tak
ing by the current crop of justices. Kavanaugh, along with his law
clerks, already has been at the Supreme Court preparing for his first day on the bench today when the justices will hear arguments in two cases about longer prison terms for repeat offenders. The new justice’s four clerks all are women, the first time that has happened.
The clerks are Kim Jackson, who previously worked for Kavanaugh on the federal appeals court in Washington, Shannon Grammel, Megan Lacy and Sara Nommensen. The latter three all worked for other Republican-nominated judges. Lacy had been working at the White House in support of Kavanaugh’s nomination.
In his Senate testimony last month in which he denied allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman in high school, accusing Democrats of orchestrating a partisan campaign against him, Kavanaugh had promised that, if he was confirmed, the four clerks working for him would be women. “I’ll be the first justice in the history of the Supreme Court to have a group of all-women law clerks. That is who I am.”
Earlier Monday, Trump criticized Democrats for opposing Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh was “caught up in a hoax that was set up by the Democrats,” Trump said as he left the White House for a trip to Florida.
“It was all made up, it was fabricated and it’s a disgrace,” he said.
Later, in Orlando, he called Kavanaugh “a flawless person. The best student, the best scholar, the great intellect, incredible record over many years.”
Trump said he once told Kavanaugh that his confirmation would be a “piece of cake.”
“He’s a great person and it was very, very unfair what happened to him. False charges. False accusations. Horrible statements that were totally untrue that he knew nothing about — frankly, terms that he probably never heard in his life,” Trump said at the International Association of Chiefs of Police meeting. “It was a disgraceful situation brought about by people that are evil. And he toughed it out. We toughed it out together.”
He thanked the Republicans who stood with Kavanaugh and said “it was a great honor to be involved in this situation.”
“He’s going to be a great Supreme Court justice — watch,” he said.
The climactic 50-48 roll call vote Saturday on Kavanaugh was the closest vote to confirm a justice since 1881. It capped a fight that seized the national conversation after claims emerged that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted women three decades ago. Kavanaugh emphatically denied the allegations.
The accusations transformed the clash from a routine struggle over judicial ideology into an angry jumble of questions about victims’ rights and personal attacks on nominees.
Ultimately, every Democrat voted against Kavanaugh except for Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday praised his party’s senators, whom he said re-established the “presumption of innocence” in confirmation hearings. “We stood up to the mob,” he said.
With one confirmation just ended, McConnell also signaled he’s willing to take up another high court nomination in the 2020 presidential election season should another vacancy arise.
Two years ago, McConnell blocked a vote on President Barack Obama’s high court nominee, Merrick Garland, citing what he said was a tradition of not filling vacancies in a presidential election year. But when asked again Sunday about it, he said different rules might apply if the same party controls the Senate and White House.
Republicans hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate, with several seats up for grabs in November. The court’s two oldest justices are Democratic appointees: Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 85 and Stephen Breyer is 80.