Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, called off a meeting with Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, and painted the president as an “unindicted co-conspirator” after his longtime personal attorney said he violated campaign finance laws at Trump’s direction.
“I have cancelled my meeting with Judge Kavanaugh. @realDonaldTrump, who is an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal matter, does not deserve the courtesy of a meeting with his nominee—purposely selected to protect, as we say in Hawaii, his own okole,” Hirono tweeted Wednesday.
“Okole” means backside or butt.
I have cancelled my meeting with Judge Kavanaugh. @realDonaldTrump, who is an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal matter, does not deserve the courtesy of a meeting with his nominee—purposely selected to protect, as we say in Hawaii, his own okole.
— Senator Mazie Hirono (@maziehirono) August 22, 2018
Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts Tuesday, including two campaign finance charges.
Cohen, 51, told the court he helped orchestrate hush money payments just before the 2016 election to two women who allegedly had affairs with Trump and said the payments were made “in coordination with, and at the direction of, a candidate for federal office.”
The $150,000 payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal and $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels were made “for purposes of influencing the election,” he admitted.
Trump told Fox News in an interview scheduled to air Thursday that the two payments were funded by him, not his presidential campaign.
The president also said in a tweet the two counts of campaign finance violations Cohen pleaded guilty to “are not a crime.”
But Cohen’s legal troubles, and Trump’s alleged involvement, has provided Senate Democrats with a new line of attack against the president’s nominee to the Supreme Court.
During a speech on the Senate floor earlier Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to put on hold the panel’s consideration of Kavanaugh’s nomination.
“The president, identified as an unindicted co-conspirator of a federal crime, an accusation made not by a political enemy but by the closest of his own confidants, is on the verge of making a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, a court that may some day soon determine the extent of the president’s legal jeopardy,” Schumer said. “In my view, the Senate Judiciary Committee should immediately pause the consideration of the Kavanaugh nomination.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, echoed the call for Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, currently scheduled for Sept. 4, to be postponed.
“The possibility of criminal wrongdoing by the president, combined with existing doubts that Brett Kavanaugh believes a president can even be investigated, demand that his hearing should be delayed,” she tweeted.
The possibility of criminal wrongdoing by the president, combined with existing doubts that Brett Kavanaugh believes a president can even be investigated, demand that his hearing should be delayed.
— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) August 22, 2018
Additionally, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., joined Hirono in refusing to meet with Kavanaugh and called his nomination is “tainted.”
“I will not take a meeting with Brett Kavanaugh. He has been nominated by someone implicated, and all but named as a co-conspirator, in federal crimes. His nomination is tainted and should be considered illegitimate,” Markey tweeted.
I will not take a meeting with Brett Kavanaugh. He has been nominated by someone implicated, and all but named as a co-conspirator, in federal crimes.
His nomination is tainted and should be considered illegitimate.
— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) August 22, 2018
