The battle over President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh is continuing this week. No matter how long is left in the struggle at present, Senate Democrats are continuing to up the ante of their opposition, having now filed a lawsuit demanding documents covering Kavanaugh’s time in George W. Bush’s White House.
Those documents have figured prominently in the confirmation fight already. Kavanaugh’s public confirmation hearings kicked off with Democrats demanding the hearing be adjourned in view of the incomplete and harried document dumps. (The Republican majority didn’t oblige.) Senate Democrats have questioned why involved interests are so hellbent on keeping the material secret — and they’ve now filed suit in their quest to find out why.
Senators Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Kamala Harris (Calif.), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii), Patrick Leahy (Vt.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) have all signed onto the effort.
‘The Senate and the American public have a brief opportunity to sift the record of Judge Kavanaugh’s public career before the Senate is expected to make an effectively irreversible decision that would shape the federal judiciary for decades, and the individual Senators have a unique platform to probe and publicize Judge Kavanaugh’s record.’
Already, from documents covering Kavanaugh’s background, a possible case of perjury has emerged. He’s repeatedly insisted before Congress, including in his recent confirmation hearing, that he had no involvement in or connection to a theft of files from Democratic Senators during the Bush era. Available emails reveal, though, that he did.
Other issues include Kavanaugh’s connection to the president’s own personal lawyer’s law firm. In an era when the president faces continued legal scrutiny for possible connection to and cooperation with Russian election meddling efforts, a potential Supreme Court judge’s views on the matter prove relevant. Kavanaugh’s views of those issues have come under close consideration, and during his aforementioned public hearing, California’s Kamala Harris indicated that he’d discussed the Russia investigation with an affiliate of Trump’s lawyer’s firm. That’s hardly a set-up worthy of being considered bias-free.
On top of these issues — and whatever else may emerge from the documents covering Kavanaugh’s past — he’s facing a credible allegation of sexual assault from a California professor. Many Republicans have remained quiet on the matter so far, but Democrats insisted that a vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination be postponed in light of the allegations and eventually got their wish. Speaking to reporters at the White House as this week dawned, the president himself acknowledged that a delay in Kavanaugh’s confirmation could soon ensue — and the Senate is now planning to possibly hear his accuser in a public hearing.
It’s a long but possible shot that Kavanaugh’s path to the Supreme Court is blocked altogether. If the process lags beyond the midterms and Democrats take control of the Senate (which they might) — Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh might become a forever irrelevant honorific. At present, it’s doubtful that Republicans could even muster the support of 50 of their members to push Kavanaugh through an overall floor vote. (Vice President Mike Pence could break the tie.) Enough Republican Senators have expressed their discontent at the process to warrant that consideration.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are continuing with their own case. They’re targeting the National Archives after previous Freedom of Information Act driven and extrajudicial efforts fell through.
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