Who is the real Brett Kavanaugh?
Who is the real Brett Kavanaugh? ❚ Is he the brilliant and super-industrious star of conservative legal circles who was, in President Donald Trump’s words, “born for the U.S. Supreme Court”? ❚ Or is he the brazenly partisan apparatchik, a Bill Clinton accuser and George W. Bush acolyte who one Democratic senator called the “Forrest Gump of Republican politics”? ❚ Is he a hero to female law clerks whom he’s mentored and promoted, a devoted husband and dad of daughters who lovingly coaches girls’ basketball teams? ❚ Or is he the grown-up version of a high school and college frat boy who spent too many nights drinking too many beers, then drunkenly mistreated girls and young women?
The Senate is split virtually down the middle on those questions. So, too, is the nation he would serve as the high court’s 114th justice.
What’s clear from a look back at Kavanaugh’s 53 years is that he has spent most of his adult life in public service, choosing modestly paid government jobs rather than the lucrative career he could have pursued in private practice.
He was a devoted servant of Republican officials, whether independent counsel Ken Starr’s investigation of Clinton in the late 1990s or Bush’s administration in the early 2000s, when he was White House associate counsel and staff secretary.
But in 2006, Kavanaugh shed his partisan role for a judicial robe, joining the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a traditional stepping-stone to the Supreme Court. By most accounts he has excelled as a judge, becoming widely quoted and acclaimed for the legal acumen displayed in more than 300 opinions.
Former U.S. solicitor general Theodore Olson, a giant in Washington legal circles, described Kavanaugh last month as “thoughtful, gracious, openminded, respected by his peers and widely praised by the lawyers who appear before him.”
And Akhil Reed Amar, a liberal law professor and constitutional scholar at Yale Law School, cited his “combination of smarts, constitutional knowledge and openness – and that’s the triple crown.”
‘Credibility’ in question
Those were not the impressions Americans got in the final three weeks of the Senate confirmation process.
By then, the case against Kavanaugh already was strong for those inclined to oppose him. He was billed as a threat to abortion rights, civil rights, gay rights, workers’ rights – everything, it seemed, but gun rights. The left was alarmed.
Then they learned he was an outspoken defender of presidential power whose efforts helped lead to Clinton’s impeachment but who later decided that presidents should not even be questioned about criminal investigations while in office. Such a view, if endorsed by a majority on the Supreme Court, could protect Trump in the probe of Russian meddling during the 2016 election.
And while it wasn’t Kavanaugh’s doing, the successful effort by Senate Republicans to keep three years of his White House documents secret created the impression that he had something to hide.
Then came Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that when he was 17, a drunken Kavanaugh assaulted her in a bedroom at a party, tried to undress her and covered her mouth with his hand to stifle her screams. Other accusations followed, and while they never were corroborated, they energized the #MeToo movement against him.
Kavanaugh’s categorical denials brought forth more accusations about his drinking and carousing at Georgetown Prep in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and later at Yale University, virtually drowning out all discussion of his legal career. As he appeared to dissemble rather than address embarrassing questions, his veracity came into question.
“Drinking is one thing, but the concern is about truthfulness,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said during the key showdown hearing late last month. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, DConn., said the central issue concerned Kavanaugh’s “credibility.”
‘On his way to big things’
To Kavanaugh’s legions of supporters, the charges don’t ring true.
His high school and college years might have been beer-infused, but by the time Kavanaugh was clerking for Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy at the Supreme Court in 1993, he “did stand out as somebody who was on his way to big things,” said Nate Forrester, a fellow clerk at the time who now works for the Justice Department.
On Starr’s staff, “he was known as pretty much the brightest guy that we had,” said Robert Bittman, who worked with Kavanaugh on the Clinton investigation. “He was uber-confident in terms of his judgment, his ability, his work ethic.”
When Bush’s 2000 election hinged on a recount in Florida, Kavanaugh was part of the would-be president’s legal team. That led to the White House and later to the appeals court, to which Bush named him.
And over his 12 years as a judge, Kavanaugh has developed a loyal following of ex-clerks. Lisa Blatt, a liberal appellate lawyer who has argued more cases before the Supreme Court than any other woman, said Kavanaugh “is remarkably committed to promoting women in the legal profession.”