Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Shouts rise over court pick
Kavanaugh faces queries on abortion, Trump ties
WASHINGTON — The confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh started Tuesday with loud objections from Democratic senators and questions even from some Republicans about how Kavanaugh would separate himself from President Donald Trump, the man who nominated him.
But GOP senators mostly calmly defended Kavanaugh from what Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the Shakespearean nature of the hearing — “sound and fury, signifying nothing” — confident that Republican support was solid for Kavanaugh become the court’s 114th justice.
The 53-year-old judge, who serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, sat impassively for nearly seven hours of senators’ statements before making brief opening comments. Questioning of him
begins today.
“The Supreme Court must never, never be viewed as a partisan institution,” Kavanaugh told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The Justices on the Supreme Court do not sit on opposite sides of an aisle. They do not caucus in separate rooms. If confirmed to the Court, I would be part of a Team of Nine, committed to deciding cases according to the Constitution and laws of the United States. I would always strive to be a team player on the Team of Nine.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley’s, R-Iowa, opening remarks were delayed for nearly an hour and a half as Democratic senators sought to cut off the confirmation hearings for Kavanaugh, raising an uproar over last-minute documents sent to the Judiciary Committee late Monday encompassing more than 42,000 pages from the nominee’s tenure in the George W. Bush White House.
One by one, Democrats, including Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, all potential presidential contenders, demanded that Republicans delay the hearing.
“We cannot possibly move forward, Mr. Chairman, with this hearing,” said Harris at the top of proceedings. Grassley disagreed.
Trump later denounced the effort by Democrats, tweeting, “The Brett Kavanaugh hearings for the future Justice of the Supreme Court are truly a display of how mean, angry, and despicable the other side is. They will say anything, and are only looking to inflict pain and embarrassment to one of the most highly renowned jurists to ever appear before Congress. So sad to see!”
The specter of Trump himself, who has frequently leveled attacks on the judiciary, loomed large during the hearing’s opening hours as Democrats and even some Republicans raised concerns about the president’s attitude toward institutions and norms.
Two Republican senators — Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Jeff Flake of Arizona — praised Kavanaugh personally and professionally, but also raised questions about Trump’s attacks on the Justice Department and how Kavanaugh would handle cases involving presidential power.
In a tweet Monday, Trump criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions for the recent indictments of two Republican members of Congress on corruption charges and for the timing that is so close to House midterm elections — a comment chastised by Sasse and Flake immediately after it was made. The two Republicans repeated their condemnation during Kavanaugh’s hearing.
“That is why a lot of people are concerned about this administration and why they want to ensure that our institutions hold,” Flake said. He added that “many of the questions you will get on the other side of the aisle and from me will” center on separation of powers.
Democrats have said that documents on Kavanaugh’s career have been withheld without justification, particularly those from his tenure as a Bush staff member. Senators have reviewed nearly 200,000 pages that cannot be disclosed to the public, and the Trump administration is withholding another 100,000 pages from Congress altogether, claiming those documents would be covered by presidential privilege.
Kavanaugh, appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by Bush, served the president in the White House Counsel’s Office from 2001 to 2003 and as staff secretary from 2003 to 2006.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said there are gaping holes in the record, spanning several years of Kavanaugh’s career in the Bush White House, and that the Senate was abandoning its obligation by not first reviewing those documents before beginning confirmation hearings this week. “It’s not only shameful, it’s a sham,” Leahy said. “This is the most incomplete, most partisan, least transparent vetting for any Supreme Court nominee I have ever seen.”
Tuesday’s proceedings brought to the surface years of anger over judicial nominees. Democrats brought up Merrick Garland, who was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2016 to fill the Supreme Court seat formerly held by the late Justice Antonin Scalia and denied a hearing by Senate Republicans.
In his remarks, Kavanaugh praised Garland, the chief judge on the appeals court on which they both serve, as “superb.”
Kavanaugh told senators he will be “a neutral and impartial arbiter” if confirmed.
“I don’t decide cases based on personal or policy preferences,” Kavanaugh said.
“I am not a pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant judge,” Kavanaugh said. “I am not a pro-prosecution or pro-defense judge. I am a pro-law judge.”
In Kavanaugh’s statement, he also paid tribute to Justice Anthony Kennedy, whom he has been nominated to replace, according to the excerpts.
“To me, Justice Kennedy is a mentor, a friend, and a hero,” Kavanaugh said. “As a member of the Court, he was a model of civility and collegiality. He fiercely defended the independence of the Judiciary. And he was a champion of liberty.”
QUESTIONS TO COME
In a preview of the tough questions Kavanaugh will face today, Democratic senators said they would press the judge on his views about abortion, gun control and executive power.
In his opening statement, Grassley laid the groundwork for Kavanaugh to refuse to answer by invoking what has come to be known as the “Ginsburg rule,” after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was appointed by a Democratic president, Bill Clinton.
Declaring that it would be “unfair and unethical” for the judge to answer questions about specific cases, Grassley said: “It’s my advice to him to follow the example set by Judge Ginsburg,” adding that “a nominee should offer no hints, no forecasts, no views.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., addressed Kavanaugh about abortion. The question, she said, is not whether Kavanaugh believes that the landmark Roe v. Wade decision is “settled law,” as he has told other senators, but “whether you believe it is the correct law.”
Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said she is concerned about Kavanaugh’s dissent in a recent case involving a pregnant migrant teen in federal custody. Kavanaugh disagreed with his colleagues on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit who ordered the Trump administration to allow access to abortion services.
Kavanaugh wrote that the court was creating “a new right for unlawful immigrant minors in U.S. government detention to obtain immediate abortion on demand.”
Feinstein also described Kavanaugh as “outside the mainstream on guns” and expressed concern about the loosening of gun-control laws. In 2011, Kavanaugh dissented when his colleagues upheld Washington’s ban on semi-automatic rifles. Kavanaugh pointed to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision declaring an individual right to gun ownership apart from military service.
“Gun bans and gun regulations that are not long-standing or sufficiently rooted in text, history, and tradition are not consistent with the Second Amendment individual right,” Kavanaugh wrote.
Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said he would resurrect a controversy from Kavanaugh’s 2006 confirmation battle over whether Kavanaugh was involved in developing Bush-era policy on the treatment of terrorism suspects. Kavanaugh worked as a White House associate counsel at the time that Bush developed his policy, laid out in what became known as the “torture memo.”
Kavanaugh testified as a nominee for the D.C. Circuit that he was “not involved.”
Later, Kavanaugh’s denial came into question when The Washington Post revealed he had participated in a White House Counsel’s Office meeting in which he had been asked his opinion about how Justice Kennedy — for whom he had clerked — was likely to view the matter.
Durbin, who was also on the Judiciary committee in 2006, said Tuesday that he would press Kavanaugh to explain the discrepancy.
In response, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, defended Kavanaugh and said the suggestion that the judge had “misled this committee in any way is absurd.”
PROTESTERS REMOVED
Before the hearing started, demonstrators were walking the hallways of the Senate Hart building. Fearing that the future of abortion rights could be at stake, dozens of women dressed in crimson robes and white bonnets as characters from the television series The Handmaid’s Tale stood silently outside the hearing room.
In the atrium of the Hart building, more than 250 activists from women’s-rights groups held a vigil in protest, sharing stories underscoring the importance of reproductive rights. They were joined by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who gave brief remarks, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
Once the hearing began, several dozen protesters started shouting one by one and were removed by police. “This is a mockery and a travesty of justice,” shouted one woman. “Cancel Brett Kavanaugh!” Others shouted against the president or to protect abortion access. “Senators, we need to stop this,” called out one.
“This lifetime appointment will be devastating to women’s rights, voting rights, gay rights,” one woman shouted.
“An illegitimate president cannot make a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court,” another said.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, called for the removal of the “loudmouth” as his remarks were interrupted by chants of “Hell nah, Kavanaugh!”
Durbin, meanwhile, said of the protests: “What we’ve heard is the noise of democracy.”
As patience thinned and tempers flared, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, denounced what he called the “mob rule.” Struggling to speak over protesters, Hatch said: “These people are so out of line they shouldn’t be in the doggone room.”
U.S. Capitol Police said they arrested 70 people for disorderly conduct or unlawful demonstration activities.
Durbin told Kavanaugh the opposition being shown at the hearing reflected the concern many Americans have over Trump’s “contempt of the rule of law” and the judge’s own expansive views on executive power.
“It’s that president who’s decided you are his man,” Durbin said. “Are people nervous about this? Concerned about this? Of course they are.”
Feinstein described the hearing’s “very unique circumstances.”
“Not only is the country deeply divided politically, we also find ourselves with a president who faces his own serious problems,” she said referring to investigations surrounding Trump. “So it’s this backdrop that this nominee comes into.”