USA TODAY International Edition
Nominee Kavanaugh: No one ‘above the law’
Peppered with questions on abortion, Trump woes
WASHINGTON – Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was hammered by tough questions on abortion, guns, the Affordable Care Act and President Donald Trump’s potential legal troubles Wednesday as he moved inexorably toward a mostly party-line confirmation vote.
Democrats opposed to his nomination to the seat vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court’s swing vote, failed to get specific answers to questions about his opinions as a federal judge for 12 years or his 51⁄2 years as a top aide in George W. Bush’s White House.
Kavanaugh sought to show independence from the president who nominated him in July, telling members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that his loyalty would be to his battered copy of the Constitution. He refused to say whether a president could be required to respond to a subpoena, a question that could come before the Supreme Court based on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
When asked if he still believes a president can fire an independent prosecutor, he said only, “That was my view in 1998.”
“No one is above the law in our constitutional system,” Kavanaugh said. “No matter who you are in our system … it’s all equal justice under law.”
Lawmakers peppered the 53-yearold judge with questions about social issues probably headed toward the court in the near future. On abortion, he said the Supreme Court twice has ruled it legal nationwide, in 1973 and again in 1992. He called the later ruling “precedent on precedent.”
On guns, he defended his dissent in a District of Columbia case that upheld a ban on semiautomatic weapons but acknowledged the “difficult” balance between defending the Second Amendment and preventing gun violence.
For the second consecutive day, the hearing opened in dramatic fashion. Scores of angry protesters organized by Women’s March and other groups shouted objections and were ejected. Over two days, more than 100 people have been arrested.
Democrats and liberal advocacy groups fear Kavanaugh would secure a five-vote conservative majority on the Supreme Court for years to come. That could jeopardize longtime precedents such as abortion rights, as well as the Affordable Care Act. Both of those subjects motivated many of the protesters Tuesday and Wednesday. Kavanaugh dissented from his court’s ruling last year that allowed an undocumented teenager in federal custody to get an abortion, a dissent he defended Wednesday based on states’ legal right to require that minors get parental consent. He dissented in 2011 from a ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act but only on procedural grounds.
The 21-member judiciary committee has at its fingertips more information about Kavanaugh than any previous nominee – about 500,000 pages. But it is missing more from his career than any other nominee – particularly his three-year stint as Bush’s staff secretary from 2003-06, deemed irrelevant by the Republican majority.