GOP hypocrisy at Kavanaugh hearings
No principle, no respect among Republicans
The nomination and confirmation of a Supreme Court justice is supposed to be a grave and solemn exercise of carefully apportioned constitutional powers. These justices, granted lifetime terms in order to insulate them from political considerations, must be exemplars of sound judgment, even temperament and, above all else, impartiality.
I know this because I keep hearing Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee say this stuff. But having served alongside them for three Supreme Court confirmations — and now watching Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process unfold — I have to say, I don’t think they really mean it.
Recall that, in his opening remarks at the White House ceremony announcing his nomination, Judge Kavanaugh praised President Donald Trump’s diligence, declaring that “no president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination.”
This was extremely untrue. President Barack Obama, for example, had taken a month or close to it to pick Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Trump had taken just 12 days to make his pick. And, of course, he did it from a list of 25 names presented by the rightwing Federalist Society. A big, fat, easily debunked lie like Kavanaugh’s should have been instantly disqualifying. Instead, it exposed his nomination as a perfect illustration of what the conservative movement has been doing to the judicial system for decades.
Kavanaugh is the very model of a young, arch-conservative judge who has been groomed for moments like this one precisely because conservative activists know he will issue expansive rulings to further their agenda. He’s there to advance the goals of the GOP and the conservative movement — starting by lavishing nonsensical praise on a president whose own staff, per this week’s anonymous New York Times op-ed, considers him an unstable idiot who operates out of whim.
And no matter how much civics-class pabulum we get from Republicans on the Judiciary Committee this week, make no mistake: They’re in on it.
Just look at the way Chairman Chuck Grassley has treated documents related to Kavanaugh’s time as a senior official in the George W. Bush administration. He allowed Bill Burck — a former assistant and close friend of Kavanaugh’s and also the attorney for several prominent Trump administration figures — to sort through Kavanaugh’s papers to decide which should be released publicly. I can only imagine what that was like: “Nothing, nothing, nothing, smoking gun. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, smoking gun, nothing…” In the end, thousands of documents were declared “confidential” and withheld, although they were likely on extremely relevant topics such as torture during the war on terror.
Why the secrecy? Why the rush? Because Republicans are intent on getting a fifth vote on the bench to protect Trump from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. I had to laugh when, during the hearings, Kavanaugh called the question of whether a president can be subpoenaed a “hypothetical.” Really? Kavanaugh was part of independent counsel Ken Starr’s investigation of President Bill Clinton — and, therefore, he is one of the few people on earth who has actually participated in subpoenaing a president.
It’s maddening to watch Republicans pretend that they still have any respect for the high-minded ideals that are supposed to preserve the impartiality and independence of the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh is proof that there is no precedent they won’t trample, no revelation they won’t shrug off, no principle they won’t contradict, if it means getting the outcomes they want.
Democrats should stop letting them get away with it. It’s time for all of us on the left to recognize that Republicans have already destroyed the independence of our judicial system and turned it into yet another partisan battlefield — and then figure out how we’re going to start fighting back.