Kavanaugh, Cordray have past connection

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh may have been out to kill Richard Cordray’s job — as well as his agency — but he’s a fan of the man.

The conservative Republican judge nominated Monday by President Donald Trump to sit on the nation’s top court and Cordray, the Democratic candidate for Ohio governor, have a history.

They both were clerks, although not at the same time, for the retiring swingvote justice that Kavanaugh is nominated to replace: Anthony Kennedy.

And, they worked together as lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis before going their separate ways, with Cordray going back home to Ohio and Kavanaugh becoming a judge on the federal appellate court for the District of Columbia. Kavanaugh even kicked in $1,250 in campaign donations for unsuccessful Cordray campaigns in 1998 (Ohio attorney general) and 2000 (U.S. Senate).

“He’s a very capable lawyer,” Cordray told reporters Tuesday. “I worked with him and I respect him, and I know he respects me.”

Cordray pointed to footnote 12 of a Kavanaughwritten opinion in 2016 in which a three-judge panel ruled that the Cordrayled Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was unconstitutionally structured — a decision later overturned by the full court.

Kavanaugh wrote of Cordray: “We do not in any way question the integrity of the current director, a man of substantial accomplishment and of longstanding and dedicated devotion to public service and the public good.”

Cordray may not care for Kavanaugh’s brand of court conservatism, but he is not going to make the fight over his nomination personal. Kavanaugh