Was it really six years ago? It seems like yesterday that I was focused like a laser beam on the Kavanaugh Mess. It was my main subject for weeks: the hearings, the sexual assault allegations, the delay, the vote.
It was long enough ago that three senators with 2020 ambitions were on the Judiciary Committee: Booker, Klobuchar, and Harris. Dianne Feinstein was the ranking member and instead of supporting her constituent, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, she made a mess of everything. And I say that as an admirer of Feinstein. The Kavanaugh hearings were not her finest hour.
The hearings featured tantrums by Kavanaugh and Lindsey Graham. It was the first time Graham lost his shit during a confirmation hearing, but it wouldn’t be the last. It happened when Justice Jackson appeared before the committee. That time he didn’t have the votes.
Even before Dr. Blasey Ford came forward, the nomination process was haunted by allegations of sleazy backroom deals involving Justice Kennedy’s retirement in favor of his former clerk, Brett Kavanaugh. This is what Mitch McConnell’s perversion of the SCOTUS nomination process wrought: we’re still paying the price for something that began when President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Remember that? It was eight years ago.
As you may recall, some moderate senators negotiated a pause in the hearings to allow the FBI to mount a supplemental background check on then Judge Bro. The Trump administration claimed to have given the FBI free rein to do a good job. They lied. Anyone surprised? I thought not.
One of my favorite senators, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, has issued a scathing report about the so-called follow up investigation into Kavanaugh, Unworthy Of Reliance. Team Trump claimed that the 2018 investigation was by the book. What book? John Dean’s Watergate memoir, Blind Ambition?
I mentioned Nixon’s White House counsel because Trump’s then counsel Don McGahn was driving the coverup train. That’s why it was skillfully executed. McGahn was one of the few competent people at the Trump White House and he played the Judiciary Committee like a fiddle. Make that a bull fiddle since so much bullshit was involved.
Don McGahn was the guy whose Muller probe testimony put this phrase into the language: “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” McGahn claimed not to be Roy Cohn 2.0, but he certainly hid the ball during Kavanaugh probe 2.0.
The FBI investigation was brief, shallow, and ignored hundreds of tips that came in after the hearings. They never spoke to Kavanaugh or Blasey Ford. Instead, the Feebs followed orders from the White House, which is how we wound up with two sexual predators on the highest court in the land, Thomas and Kavanaugh. And the first one wasn’t even a Trump appointee. Nothing remotely like this has ever come up with Democratic nominees. Thanks to McConnell, Trump, Leo, Alito, and Thomas, the court’s reputation is at an all-time low.
Repeat after me: Everything Trump touches turns to shit.
The country owes Senator Whitehouse a debt of gratitude for his dogged investigation. Alas, there’s nothing to be done about the disgraceful way in which Kavanaugh became Justice Bro but it was an early indicator that SCOTUS was on the highway to MAGA hell.
I wonder if ProPublica has looked into who retired Justice Bro’s credit card debt. Could it be Harlan Crow? Nothing would surprise me with the corrupt MAGA court.
The most memorable line uttered by Brett Kavanaugh at his confirmation hearing was this:
The last word goes to Tom T Hall: