The above photo of Brett Kavanaugh & his wife & children was taken @ a private swearing in ceremony within hours of Judge Kavanaugh being confirmed by the Senate on October 6 as the 114th Supreme Court Justice. President Trump had signed Kavanaugh's commission on Air Force One on his way to a MAGA rally in Kansas. Chief Justice John Roberts administered the Constitutional Oath, shown above, & retiring Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy administered the Judicial Oath.
The public ceremonial swearing in took place Monday night in the East Room of the White House on national TV.
Kavanaugh's contentious confirmation process, including an additional hearing devoted to sexual assault charges by Professor Christine Blasey Ford against Kavanaugh, had many lowlights as described in the last post but the following two highlights will not soon be forgotten – they are what the confirmation vote turned on.
1. South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham stopped the hearing in its tracks with a speech (notice the body language of Kavanaugh on the split screen) that can only have been inspired by or learned from Graham's close working relationship with President Trump.
Graham actually said the things that everyone in the hearing room & across the country, for that matter, knew was going on - but before Trump's election would have been afraid to say. Graham could not have been clearer in unmasking the destructive political correctness theme of the hearing & exposing the Democrats' deliberate delay strategy in the hope to gain power. It set the stage for all Republicans except Murkowski to vote for Kavanaugh.
In summary, Lindsey Graham was politically incorrect, just like Trump, & that was exactly what was called for.
2. The day before the Senate's confirmation vote Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins gave the speech of her life on the Senate floor in which she detailed the time consuming process she went through in deciding to vote in Kavanaugh's favor.
In her speech Collins mentioned the Constitution three times & said she was informed by The Federalist No.76: Hamilton – this was not only refreshing for me to hear but should be a model for every senator.
With regard to the sexual assault charges levied against Kavanaugh by Ford, Collins said that she believed Professor Ford had been sexually assaulted @ some point in her life. Collins said that the debate is complicated further by the fact that the Senate confirmation process is not a trial but that certain fundamental legal principles about due process, the presumption of innocence, & fairness prayed on her thinking & she could not abandon them. Accordingly, for virtually all of the reasons listed in the last post regarding lack of corroborating evidence Collins said that Ford's charges could not fairly prevent Kavanaugh from serving on the Supreme Court.
Collins found Kavanaugh's 12-year record on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, including his more than 300 opinions, his speeches, & law review articles very much in line with what she expected from a Supreme Court Justice – i.e., she "fully expect(s) them to be able to put aside any & all personal preferences in deciding cases that come before them."
Collins spent three hours discussing legal matters with Kavanaugh personally & called on attorneys from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service to assist her in evaluating Kavanaugh's extensive record. Collins spoke with people who knew Kavanaugh personally such as Condoleezza Rice & Lisa Blatt who clerked for & is an ardent admirer of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
During this extensive review Kavanaugh was able to satisfy Collins' liberal points of view regarding 1) the protection of people with preexisting conditions under ObamaCare, 2) the belief that no president is above the law, 3) the right of same sex couples to marry, 4) the treatment of homosexuals with dignity & worth, 5) the availability of birth control services for women while minimizing the involvement of employers with religious objections, 6) the protection of abortion rights under Roe v. Wade, 7) the practice & tradition of precedent in judicial policy, & 8) the Trump campaign pledge to nominate only judges who would overturn Roe.
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On October 4, the night before Senator Collins floor speech, Senator Graham sparred with a protester about the entire Kavanaugh matter & summed it up this way: "It will never be enough. If you don't believe he is a gang rapist, if you don't believe he is a stumbling bumbling drunk, serial sexual predator, maybe you'll believe he lied about how much he drank in high school, that he threw ice in a bar, or that he doesn't have the temperament – he didn't handle being destroyed well. Enough, enough already. Let's vote."
Great for America and the law.
ReplyDeleteGreat summary of the Kavanaugh debacle!
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