Kavanaugh questioned ruling against Nixon
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s yearsold remarks questioning the landmark ruling that forced President Richard Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes opened a new front in the battle over his confirmation, ensuring his views on executive power will square prominently in Senate hearings.
Included in the thousands of pages turned over to the Senate Judiciary Committee this past weekend is a 1999 transcript of a panel discussion in which the future Supreme Court nominee opined whether the “tensions of the time led to an erroneous decision” in the case United States v. Nixon.
Although Kavanaugh has defended the 1974 ruling in other remarks, Democrats have seized on his skepticism from nearly two decades ago to build a key argument against the nominee: That he won’t be a sufficient check on the president who appointed him.
“If Kavanaugh would’ve let Nixon off the hook, what is he willing to do for President Trump?” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., asked Monday.
Democrats have also focused on Kavanaugh’s rulings in favor of broad presidential power and his criticism of the independent counsel law to suggest he would protect President Trump from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.
But it is unclear whether Kavanaugh’s dim view of the independent counsel law extends to separate special-counsel regulations governing Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Mueller’s legal battle with Trump’s lawyers over his request to interview the president could end up before the Supreme Court. On the Nixon decision, Kavanaugh’s allies rallied to his defense. They contended he had praised the unanimous ruling in the case — which forced Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes and ultimately led to his resignation — in other venues, such as a law review article in 1998 and a speech in 2016.
But his comments suggesting Nixon was wrongly decided, which came during a roundtable discussion about government lawyers and attorney-client privilege, have drawn the most attention.
Philip Lacovara, who had argued United States v. Nixon, said Nixon had taken the position that under the Constitution, no one in the executive or judicial branch could challenge his decision to prevent White House information from being released.