Confirmation hearings are held in order to vet a nominee for a cabinet position or a judgeship to ensure that only qualified and honest candidates are confirmed. So when those candidates lie during their confirmation hearings, it strains the credibility of the office they hold as well as the process that confirmed them.
Our Constitutional Republic cannot tolerate Supreme Court Justices who lied in order to get confirmed. The legitimacy of the Court is at stake.
Letter from @AOC and me requesting the Senate to make a finding on whether Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch lied to the American people. pic.twitter.com/snQQf2cVKm
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) July 11, 2022
We cannot allow Supreme Court nominees lying and/or misleading the Senate under oath to go unanswered.
Both GOP & Dem Senators stated SCOTUS justices misled them. This cannot be accepted as precedent.
Doing so erodes rule of law, delegitimizes the court, and imperils democracy. https://t.co/yZW6BKnqFG
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 11, 2022
And yet, despite this basic fact, more than one Supreme Court justice sits on the bench today who lied during their confirmation hearings. Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, all nominated to the highest court in the land by Donald Trump, all said under oath that they believed Roe v Wade was settled law. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh did so in individuals interviews with senators. Thus far, nothing has been done to hold them accountable for those lies.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) penned a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) asking for a determination by the U.S. Senate as to whether Gorsuch and Kavanaugh lied during their confirmation hearings.
In the text of the letter, quoted in full on the website for Congressman Lieu, it says:
‘We are writing because the legitimacy of the United States Supreme Court is at stake. Multiple Supreme Court Justices misled the American people during their confirmation hearings about their views on Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood. At least two of them, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, directly lied to Senators. We respect the right of individual Justices to have their own views on various constitutional issues. But we cannot have a system where Justices lie about their views in order to get confirmed. That makes a mockery of the confirmation power, and of the separation of powers. We respectfully request the Senate issue a finding – through a resolution or another kind of public statement –on whether these Justices lied under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee.’
While it is unknown whether an official proceeding will be held to make this determination, it is the first effort made to restore the court’s credibility, which is sorely lacking after the confirmations of those last three justices and the constitutional laws that were bent to get them on the bench.
Twitter was in full agreement with the two members of Congress as they push for measures to restore the court’s legitimacy after the lies of the justices of the Trump administration. Read some of their comments below:
