The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Dems lack votes on Kavanaugh
But says SCOTUS hearing best chance to grill, block him
WASHINGTON — Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is promising “a lot of sparks are going to fly” when President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, federal appeals court Judge Brett Kavanaugh, takes his seat Tuesday at opening day of confirmation hearings.
But absent a majority in the Senate, Blumenthal and fellow Democrats may already be out of options for blocking Kavanaugh — Trump’s second nominee who likely would tip the court in a clear conservative direction, if confirmed.
But that won’t stop Blumenthal from trying, he said.
Blumenthal is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which on Tuesday begins two or three days of confirmation hearings for Kavanaugh.
Blumenthal said Friday he would ask Kavanaugh, 53, direct and pointed questions on a variety of topics ranging from his views on guns and the Roe v. Wade abortion precedent, to a president’s ability to control a special counsel investigation.
“The elephant in the room on Tuesday is the implication of the president as an unindicted coconspirator,” said Blumenthal,
referring to former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen’s guilty plea in which he stated Trump had directed him, just prior to the 2016 election, to pay off women claiming to have had sexual relationships with Trump.
“Never before has a president named in a plea agreement appointed a justice who could very well sit (in judgment) of his own prosecution,” Blumenthal said in a conference call with reporters Friday.
Much of the questioning of Blumenthal and other Democrats will revolve around Kavanaugh’s views of presidential powers, which have evolved over the decades since he was a young lawyer on the staff of independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater probe — which focused mostly on then-President Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Although the Starr probe knocked down Clinton’s efforts to avoid testifying because of his presidential duties, Kavanaugh went on to be a staunch defender of expansive presidential powers — including the right of the president to sidestep a criminal investigation while in office.
Kavanaugh’s views in this area may generate the most heat during confirmation hearings because of Trump’s efforts to derail the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller into Trump 2016 campaign links to Russia.
As a Supreme Court justice, Kavanaugh could provide the key fifth vote to help Trump avoid a subpoena or claim immunity from prosecution, Blumenthal said.
And as the replacement for Justice Anthony Kennedy, often a swing vote in closely watched cases, Kavanaugh could provide the fifth vote on a solidly conservative court that — in Blumenthal’s estimation — imperils Roe v. Wade, the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare and the ability of states like Connecticut to pass strict gun laws.
In his rounds of questions, Blumenthal is likely to focus on Kavanaugh’s views of whether key precedents such as Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, were correctly decided.
Blumenthal declined to say what specific questions he would ask but nonetheless made clear that his years as Connecticut’s top state and federal prosecutor would be brought to bear.
“There will be sparks at this hearing,” he said. “A lot of sparks are going to fly.”
During confirmation hearings last year on now Justice Neil Gorsuch, Blumenthal tried pinning the nominee down on whether Brown v Board of Education -- the 1954 landmark case ending school segregation — was decided correctly.
Gorsuch hemmed and hawed, talking about how the court correctly applied constitutional principles. But he never answered Blumenthal’s question directly.
Gorsuch ultimately won confirmation 54-45, with three Red-state Democrats — Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia -- joining Republicans.
With virtually all Republicans likely to back Kavanaugh, the nominee’s fate ultimately may be in the hands of these three. All are running uphill re-election campaigns this fall in states easily won by Trump in 2016.
Heitkamp and Donnelly have said they would decide after the confirmation hearings. Manchin has said he remains undecided.
If they follow previous patterns, the hearings are likely to resemble scripted theater, with the nominee and each senator playing a prescribed role and the outcome not much in doubt.
“Not a single Senate vote will change on what Kavanaugh does or does not say at these hearings,” said Richard Kay, professor of law emeritus at UConn. Blumenthal also has joined fellow Democrats in asking for the hearings to be delayed, condemning Republicans for not turning over documents on Kavanaugh -- particularly his years of service in the White House of former President George W. Bush.
On Friday, Blumenthal argued Republican lawyers were “sanitizing and cherry picking” the small number of documents they turned over.
But Republicans on the committee have poohpooed Democratic claims, countering that the Kavanaugh nomination has been “the most productive, in terms of the documents, vetting process of any nominee for the United States Supreme Court,” as Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, put it.