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dalton99a

(80,907 posts)
Sat Aug 18, 2018, 09:56 AM Aug 2018

Why Are Republicans Covering Up Brett Kavanaugh's Past?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/opinion/republicans-brett-kavanaugh-senate.html

Why Are Republicans Covering Up Brett Kavanaugh’s Past?
For the first time in modern history, Senate leaders are refusing to request a Supreme Court nominee’s relevant papers.

By The Editorial Board
Aug. 17, 2018

Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s supporters have spent the last month lavishing him with acclaim. He’s a legal superstar, they say, one of the most qualified Supreme Court nominees in history. So why are Senate Republicans so afraid of letting Americans learn more about him?

After what they did to Judge Merrick Garland in 2016 — obliterating Senate tradition by outright ignoring President Barack Obama’s third Supreme Court nomination for partisan political gain — you might think it would be hard for Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to inflict any more damage on the court.

Surprise! They’re now running the most secretive and incomplete confirmation process in modern history. They scrambled to set the start of Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing for Sept. 4, even as they have refused multiple requests by their Democratic colleagues to see more than one million documents covering his years as White House staff secretary to President George W. Bush. Judge Kavanaugh has called that job, which he held from 2003 to 2006, “the most interesting and informative” of his career in terms of preparing for his work on the bench.

These documents could contain important information about his role in some of the Bush administration’s most controversial actions, including its warrantless wiretapping program and its torture policy. Judge Kavanaugh was evasive during his 2006 confirmation hearing for a seat on the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., where he currently sits. He denied any involvement in those policies, but Democratic senators have long believed that his answers to them were, at best, misleading. And at least one former Bush official appeared to directly contradict him. So what was his true role? The documents may or may not answer that question definitively, but we’ll never know without seeing them.

The documents could also shed light on Judge Kavanaugh’s ability to be impartial on important legal issues that may come before the Supreme Court. Before becoming a judge, he was a loyal Republican warrior, working on the Starr Report that recommended the impeachment of President Bill Clinton and helping Mr. Bush’s team during the 2000 election recount. He worked for the Bush administration during its push for, among other things, severe restrictions on women’s reproductive rights and a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. The Senate should have access to anything in the judge’s record that reveals pre-existing views on issues like these.

This is precisely the kind of information about a Supreme Court nominee that senators need to consider before voting to provide a lifetime seat on the nation’s highest court. It would be a dereliction of their constitutional duty to do less. Indeed, Senate Republicans rightly demanded, and got, comprehensive information on Mr. Obama’s two successful nominees, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

And yet, to everyone who now requests this basic information about Judge Kavanaugh, Mr. McConnell and Mr. Grassley say, take a hike.

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Why Are Republicans Covering Up Brett Kavanaugh's Past? (Original Post) dalton99a Aug 2018 OP
Why are the GOPs covering up for t-rump, WH, Iliyah Aug 2018 #1
You hit it with the word comrades. lark Aug 2018 #2
How the fuck is this even possible?!?! Should be disqualifying on its face!! InAbLuEsTaTe Aug 2018 #3
Because they can.... Thunderbeast Aug 2018 #4
Kicked and recommended. Uncle Joe Aug 2018 #5
Thanks for the article. n/t Judi Lynn Aug 2018 #6
They are covering up his past four the same reason they want him to be a Chief Justice. Nitram Aug 2018 #7

lark

(22,941 posts)
2. You hit it with the word comrades.
Sat Aug 18, 2018, 10:07 AM
Aug 2018

Russian Repugs want another plant on the SCOTUS to assist with the total takeover of our government and political process nad to ensure drumpf doesn't get removed for his crimes against the nation.

Nitram

(22,614 posts)
7. They are covering up his past four the same reason they want him to be a Chief Justice.
Sun Aug 19, 2018, 04:32 PM
Aug 2018

He is the perfect man to implement the conservative agenda, and they want him on the court no matter what.

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