Kavanaugh unscathed after marathon session
Democrats took their best shots at President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee on Wednesday but Brett Kavanaugh appears to be on course to be the next associate justice, possibly in time for the high court’s start on the first Monday in October.
Wednesday’s hearing was once again punctuated by countless protester disruptions. The Capitol Police charged 73 people with unlawful demonstration activities.
But Democrats were restrained, despite fury from the liberal base that Senate leaders aren’t doing enough to try to derail Kavanaugh’s nomination.
Democrats focused heavily on whether Kavanaugh believes a sitting president should be open to civil and criminal charges, with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a former state attorney general, describing Trump as “an unindicted co-conspirator” in the Russian interference campaign around the 2016 election.
Kavanaugh has argued in the past that charges should be delayed until a president has left office or has been removed through the impeachment process, but said that he would review every case with fresh eyes.
Kavanaugh cited 9/11 as the impetus for his perspective, saying that working for then-President George W. Bush made him realize that the president should be unencumbered by outside legal pressures to be able to concentrate on national security.
Democrats have said that may be one of the reasons why Trump picked Kavanaugh.
On Wednesday, Kavanaugh declined to answer hypothetical questions about whether a president can pardon himself or if a president could pardon others in circumstances of presidential legal jeopardy.
And he declined to say whether he’d recuse himself from any case brought before the Supreme Court dealing with Trump’s legal issues.
“I think that tone of not getting us involved in politics means I need to stay not just away from the line but three zip codes away from the line of current events or politics.” – Kavanaugh
However, the appellate court judge cited U.S. v. Nixon, the 1974 Supreme Court ruling that forced then-President Nixon to turn over tapes and documents from the Watergate investigation, as one of the “greatest moments in Supreme Court history.”
Kavanaugh said that ruling showed the Supreme Court could operate independently during a “crisis moment.” Kavanaugh insisted that he was not arguing that a president would have blanket immunity from crimes he may have committed in office.
“No one is above the law. That is just such a foundational element of the Constitution.” – Kavanaugh
