Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a thoroughly Washingtonian choice for the Supreme Court. He grew up in Washington, D.C. After law school (Yale) and clerkships (3rd and 9th Circuits, and Justice Anthony Kennedy), he worked for Ken Starr first at the Office of the Solicitor General and later in the independent counsel’s investigation into former President Bill Clinton. He had a brief stint at the D.C. office of mega-firm Kirkland & Ellis before joining former President George W. Bush’s White House for five years. That ultimately earned him a nod for a judgeship on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In other words, he’s well-connected to the Bush machine, and therefore an unexpected choice for President Trump.

There are some things that may have put Kavanaugh over the top for Trump. First, Kavanaugh has expressed disagreement with the now-lapsed independent counsel statute as a violation of the separation of powers—just like Justice Antonin Scalia did. Of note, the current special counsel regulations that Robert Mueller is operating under to investigate connections between Russia and the Trump campaign are modeled partly on the independent counsel statute. Like Scalia, Kavanaugh has endorsed a broad view of executive power as specifically vested in the person of the president.