Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh declared fervently at his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday the court “must never, never be viewed as a partisan institution.” But that was at the end of a marathon day marked by rancorous exchanges between Democrats and Republicans, including dire Democratic fears that he would be President Donald Trump’s advocate on the high court.
The week of hearings on Kavanaugh’s nomination began with a sense of inevitability that the 53-year-old appellate judge eventually will be confirmed, perhaps in time for the new term on Oct. 1 and little more than a month before congressional elections.
However, the first of at least four days of hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee began with partisan quarreling over the nomination and persistent protests from members of the audience, followed by their arrests.
Strong Democratic opposition to Trump’s nominee reflects the political stakes for both parties in advance of the November elections, Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign and the potentially pivotal role Kavanaugh could play in moving the court to the right.
Democrats, including several senators poised for 2020 presidential bids, tried to block the proceedings in a dispute over Kavanaugh records withheld by the White House. Republicans in turn accused the Democrats of turning the hearing into a circus.
Trump jumped into the fray late in the day, saying on Twitter that Democrats were “looking to inflict pain and embarrassment” on Kavanaugh.
Below is the video of the opening chaos at the hearings. Under that is a full live stream of the hearing:
….looking to inflict pain and embarrassment to one of the most highly renowned jurists to ever appear before Congress. So sad to see!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2018
The president’s comment followed the statements of Democratic senators who warned that Trump was, in the words of Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, “selecting a justice on the Supreme Court who potentially will cast a decisive vote in his own case.”
In Kavanaugh’s own statement at the end of more than seven hours of arguing, the federal appeals judge spoke repeatedly about the importance of an independent judiciary and the need to keep the court above partisan politics, common refrains among Supreme Court nominees that had added salience in the fraught political atmosphere of the moment.
With his wife, two children and parents sitting behind him, Kavanaugh called himself a judge with a straightforward judicial philosophy.
“A judge must be independent and must interpret the law, not make the law. A judge must interpret statutes as written. A judge must interpret the Constitution as written, informed by history and tradition and precedent,” he said.
Kavanaugh also promised to be “a team player on the Team of Nine.”
The Supreme Court is often thought of as nine separate judges, rather than a team. And on the most contentious cases, the court tends to split into conservative and liberal sides. But justices often do say they seek consensus, and they like to focus on how frequently they reach unanimous decisions.
Barring a major surprise over the next two days of questioning, the committee is expected to vote along party lines to send Kavanaugh’s nomination to the full Senate.
Majority Republicans can confirm Kavanaugh without any Democratic votes, though they’ll have little margin for error.
[WATCH: Kavanaugh Refuses to Shake Hands With Father of Parkland Shooting Victim]
“There are battles worth fighting, regardless of the outcome,” Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said in an unsparing opening statement that criticized Kavanaugh’s judicial opinions and the Senate process that Democrats said had deprived them of access to records of important chunks of Kavanaugh’s time as an aide to President George W. Bush.
[WATCH: At Kavanaugh Hearing, GOP Sen. Sasse Rips Congress For Not Doing It’s Job]
Democrats raised objections from the moment Chairman Chuck Grassley gaveled the committee to order. One by one, Democrats, including Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, all potential presidential contenders, demanded that Republicans delay the hearing. They railed against the unusual vetting process by Republicans that failed to include documents from three years Kavanaugh worked in the Bush administration, and 100,000 more pages withheld by the Trump White House. Some 42,000 pages were released on the evening before of the hearing.
“We cannot possibly move forward, Mr. Chairman, with this hearing,” said Harris at the top of proceedings. Grassley disagreed.
As protesters repeatedly interrupted the session, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who is fighting for his own re-election in Texas, apologized to Kavanaugh for the spectacle he said had less to do about the judge’s legal record than Trump in the White House.
“It is about politics,” said Cruz. “It is about Democratic senators re-litigating the 2016 election.”
The Republicans’ slim majority in the Senate was bolstered during the hearing by the announcement from Arizona that Gov. Doug Ducey was appointing Jon Kyl, the former senator, to fill the seat held by the late Sen. John McCain. When Kyl is sworn in, Republicans will hold 51 of the 100 seats.
Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are the only two Republicans even remotely open to voting against Kavanaugh, though neither has said she would do so. Abortion rights supporters are trying to appeal to those senators, who both favor abortion access.
Kavanaugh sat silently and impassively for most of the day, occasionally sipping water and taking notes on senators’ points. Besides his family, he was accompanied by outgoing White House Counsel Don McGahn and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Several dozen protesters, shouting one by one, disrupted the hearing at several points and were removed by police. “This is a mockery and a travesty of justice,” shouted one woman. “Cancel Brett Kavanaugh!” Others shouted against the president or to protect abortion access. “Senators, we need to stop this,” called out one.
As patience thinned and tempers flared, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, denounced what he called the “mob rule.” Struggling to speak over protesters, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said: “These people are so out of line they shouldn’t be in the doggone room.”
But Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told Kavanaugh the opposition being shown at the hearing reflected the concern many Americans have over Trump’s “contempt of the rule of law” and the judge’s own expansive views on executive power.
“It’s that president who’s decided you are his man,” Durbin said. “Are people nervous about this concerned about this? Of course they are.”
The panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, described the hearing’s “very unique circumstances.”
“Not only is the country deeply divided politically, we also find ourselves with a president who faces his own serious problems,” she said referring to investigations surrounding Trump. “So it’s this backdrop that this nominee comes into.”
(AP / YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
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22 Responses
so Cory Booker the former keynote speaker at Agudas Yisroel is leading the charge against this moral man?
Remarkable how swiftly American politics
has collapsed .
That is what does happen when moral underpinnings of society are removed
either they are replaced soon,or..
You are correct nowecant — it seems that Agudas Yisroel is not that good at choosing speakers.
Kavanaugh believes that a sitting president cannot be indicted while in office. Sufficient reason for his nomination to go through if you are a republican.
> many remain irate, even two years later, over the treatment of Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, who was denied so much as a hearing last year by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
That itself was in retaliation for what Obama (with his confederates) had done during the time Obama was a Senator. He blocked everything the Republicans tried to do, and in particular blocked the promotion of a certain Black female judge who was raised in an impoverished family and pulled herself up by her own bootstraps through law school. That growth experience had taight her how to really escape from poverty and had switched her allegiance from Democrat to Republican, and Obama made no secret that is exactly the reason he blocked her progress.
The Anti-Trump Derangement Syndrome is contagious. I have long promised that, as a registered Democrat, I would never vote for any Democrat for national office. It has become the party of an obsession with disrupting anything, even things reasonable, that emanate from Trump. I wish these Democrats a speedy מפלה.
Cory Booker is a shmegeggi!
cory booker, the hater of morals, also challenged mike pompea on his anti toeivah stand when he was being appointed
why the heck did anyone of us vote for this immoral creature ?!
The Democrats have become totally unhinged.
Hey Kamala. Your boss, Nanci Plastic, told us, we have to pass ObamaCare before we can see what’s in it. All these Democrat hypocrites.
This isn’t the first time the Democrats have turned to physical violence and intimidation. They used in 1968, which explains how Richard Nixon managed to become President. Unless one has a behind-the-scences militia ready to stage a putsch, mob violence is usually a totally ineffective method of challenging a political system since it alienates one’s allies, and mobilizes one’s opponents.
> Amil Zola
Yeah – His position is that Presidents must be impeached before they can be removed. And once removed they can be indicted. Nothing in Kavanaugh’s position prevents a President from either being impeached or indicted. He simply wants them done in the correct order. The Constitution was designed that way so as to block any “push” (or blackmail) against the President. This is so that potential thugs in the CIA an /or FBI (and/or NSA etc.) can’t take revenge on the President for the President’s unilateral decisions as to what matters of national security are revealed to whom. Believe it or not – ot is the President who is (suppsed to be) privy to ALL national security matters, and act as necessary on national security matters without revealing himself to all wannabees. His oversight is only by Congress and Senate.
jack p,
eh..
Wait till the askunim
start piling on
with honeypots
and endorsements
adjuring us
To paraphrase Amil Zola: Kavanaugh believes that a sitting president cannot be indicted while in office. Sufficient reason for his nomination to go through if you want a criminal – of either party – in the White House.
I actually have a hard time davening in shuls that are called Agudas Yisroel because of their history of endorsing democrats.
georgeg, I’ve spent some time reading the available commentary from Kavanaugh regarding not being able to indict a president. I’ve found much commentary that reiterates what you wrote. I have yet to see a single quote from Kavanaugh that posits your explanation. In today’s day and age I’d prefer to hear it from the horses mouth (no offense to you). FWIW what I find very concerning about these hearings is the rules have changed. When Sotomayor was being confirmed the Republican party requested the same kinds of documents the Democrats have requested on Kavanaugh. They were provided to the Republicans. Now when the Democrats are asking the same with regards to Kavanaugh a childish game of stalling and last minute access is taking place on the national stage. I can certainly remember when the Republican party refused hearings on the appointment of President Obama’s choice for replacing Scalia. They dug their heels in, much like they did when Barak Obama was elected president. When will the Republican party permit the democratic process to move forward? (Rhetorical question, I know you don’t have the answer.)
The Dems openly said they would oppose Trump’s nominee over a week before they even know who it was, so all their whiny excuses can’t be accepted as anything other than obstructionism. Also Trump’s office released 10x more documents on Kavanaugh than Obama’s White House did on Kagan and Sotomayor.
Amil Zola,
apparently your memory needs some help
1. the practice did not start with the
garland nomination. It was started
by Sens Schumer and Biden. They
notified Bush that they would not
consider any SC nominee in his 4th
year
2. the Sotomayer and Kavanaugh cases
are not comparable. The Democrats
requested over 100,000 documents.
Every Democrat who complained
yesterday is on record as going to
vote against him. Were they actually
going to read them?
3. they’ve used every parliamentary
trick in the book to try to delay, then
accuse the Republicans of bad faith
Amil Zola, it is so consistent with all you Bolsheviks (i.e. Democrats), you can lie, cheat, ignore the truth as long as it justifies your goals.
MoisheInGolus,
Can’t more than one side
raise valid issues?
It is Time for Truth , Unlike Democrat Bolsheviks who shut down every dissent, nobody is preventing them from raising their “valid” points.
nothig new. We see who the democrats are …anarchist who want to bring us down .Souser etc etc ‘mi v’mi haholchin’. Dont take our freedoms for granted…in one day this country will be on its head. EVIL TRIUMPS BECAUE GOOD MEN SIT ON THIER LAPS
> anonymous Jew and Amil Zola
I did a search and the web sites indicate that 42,000 docuemmnts are to be (or were) released, but, the Democrat is quotes as follows:
> “We start this hearing with only 4 percent of Brett Kavanaugh’s White House record available to the public,” emphasized Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) last week.
So a little arithmetic gives not 100,000 pages but a MILLION pages.Indeed, the article continues:
> Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned before his nomination that Kavanaugh could take longer to confirm. “The number of pages is said to run into the millions …
As an aside, I have very little respect for any complaints (coming from the legislatures) about how slow the government is to respond to Freedom of Information . These guys ARE the legislature – THEY are the ones who should something about it instead of complaining. But they DON’T do anything about it because they imagine the time will come when it is THEY who will use this to slow things down in requests they will want to delay.