As the Bush White House has made a point of sending very conservative judicial nominees to the Senate, expecting and then decrying Democratic opposition to these judges-to-be, hearings in the Judiciary Committee have drawn increased attention. Alas, they’re usually anti-climatic. I can’t think of one good “You can’t handle the truth!” moment in all of the hours of questions for controversial nominees.
This morning, however, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to a lifetime position on the U.S. Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit. If ever there was testimony likely to produce some interesting exchanges, it’s this one.
On the surface, Kavanaugh looks like yet another young, conservative GOP activist, typical of other Bush nominees. He was formerly an associate in the White House counsel’s office and, more importantly, was a key member of Ken Starr’s impeachment team. Indeed, Kavanaugh personally wrote the portion of the Starr report that outlined Starr’s reasons for Congress to impeach Clinton in 1998. More recently, Kavanaugh has played a leadership role in helping Bush chose the administration’s judicial nominees.
While this resume is enough to make Dems awfully hesitant about Kavanaugh’s nomination, his professional background is also a tremendous opportunity to get helpful information — under oath — from a pivotal White House player. As Roll Call reported yesterday:
Setting the stage for the Senate’s latest judicial battle, Judiciary Committee Democrats are gearing up for a nomination hearing Tuesday by preparing a line of questioning that could encompass a decade’s worth of Washington scandals.
Most importantly, Democrats plan to question Brett Kavanaugh…about whether he or anyone else in the Bush administration saw any of the more than 4,000 Democratic memos that were taken off committee computers in 2001 and 2002.
You can almost hear the Dems salivating at the chance to interrogate this guy.
[Kavanaugh’s work with Starr on the Clinton impeachment] has led Democrats to express concerns about Kavanaugh’s views on privacy and prosecutorial conduct in his bid to land a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
“There will be a ton of questions,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a Judiciary member. “He opens so many doors into areas of inquiry.”
He does indeed. When Senate Republican staffers stole thousands of documents from Judiciary Committee Dems, there were some questions about how much the White House knew of the stolen reports and whether Bush officials tried to capitalize on the information. Naturally, the White House refused to respond to Dem questions. Kavanaugh, on the other hand, will have a tougher time ignoring inquiries at his own confirmation hearing.
And it’s not just the GOP theft.
From Starr to Monica Lewinsky to Manuel Miranda — the former GOP staffer at the center of the improperly accessed Democratic memos — Kavanaugh has connections directly or indirectly to a host of scandal figures who have irked Democrats in recent years.
[…]
While in the counsel’s office Kavanaugh was also at the center of a few other decisions, including one to restrict access to presidential documents traditionally released after 12 years. Democratic staff said this was a bit of legal irony since, while working for Starr, Kavanaugh spent a lot of time and effort trying to unseal documents on which the Clinton administration claimed executive privilege.
His connections to Starr are an obvious source of anguish for Democrats. “Having been Ken Starr’s right-hand man, he comes in raising a lot of questions on our side,” Durbin said.
Even without Kavanaugh’s “colorful” political background, this would be a controversial nominee for the DC Circuit. He has no judicial experience and a fairly limited legal background outside partisan political work. And at just 39, Kavanaugh is unusually young for just an important judicial post.
But it’s his political experiences that will make him highly objectionable to Senate Dems. The GOP loves him — natch — but Kavanaugh will probably be the fifth to draw a filibuster if his nomination reaches the Senate floor.
His fate, however, is interesting but secondary under the circumstances. How Kavanaugh answers today’s questions, and how much information he’s willing to share, will make the hearing fun. I’ll let you know what happens.