Senate Democrats are frustrated. They need a reason to postpone Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings until after the election, and so far there just isn’t one.
First they tried requesting an implausible number of documents—many of them sensitive or irrelevant—from his time as staff secretary in the Bush administration. Committee Democrats requested every document with Kavanaugh’s initials on it. Judiciary chairman Chuck Grassley tried to work out an accommodation to request a relevant portion of those files in a timely way, but he quickly learned his Democratic counterparts weren’t interested in the files. They were interested in delay.
Democrats already have access to thousands of records ranging from Kavanaugh’s time working for independent counsel Ken Starr, his time in the White House counsel’s office, and his nomination to the D.C. Circuit. They also have 12 years’ worth of his legal rulings to look through.
Grassley offered to allow all his off-committee colleagues to review “committee confidential” documents related to Kavanaugh—a first, as far as we know. We’re told that one Democratic senator took Grassley up on the offer and scheduled a time to review the documents. Grassley’s staff waited for two hours, but the senator never showed up. Evidently he finally got the memo that this was about delay, not documents.
The document requests have continued unabated. Minority leader Majority leader Chuck Schumer even threatened to sue the National Archives over the judge’s records. He says Democrats need these documents to size up the president’s Supreme Court nominee … the nominee that almost all of them plan to vote against.
Last week they found a second strategy. Shortly after the president’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty and his former campaign manager Paul Manafort was convicted, Dems called to postpone Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing. On what grounds? “A 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 someday soon determine the extent of the president’s legal jeopardy,” Schumer said Wednesday. “It is unseemly for the president of the United States to be picking a Supreme Court Justice who could soon be, effectively, a juror in a case involving the president himself.” Committee Democrats used the same argument in a sanctimonious letter to Grassley last week.
Beyond being obviously disingenuous, the argument is bogus. As Grassley pointed out, Bill Clinton was under investigation for the Whitewater scandal when he nominated Stephen Breyer, but Breyer was confirmed 87-9. It’s also dangerous. The Democrats are arguing that they can block any president’s judicial nominees simply by alluding to a scandal and calling into question his legitimacy. If they think that tactic won’t be used against them when there’s a Democrat in the White House, they should ask Harry Reid about the hazards of breaking precedents.
Now Senate Democrats are trying with comic rage to outdo each other in opposition to Kavanaugh. Ed Markey, of Massachussetts, pledged not to take a meeting with Kavanaugh: a pledge that might have been more effective had the senator not already vowed in July to oppose the nominee. We assume Dianne Feinstein, who met with Kavanaugh on the Monday before the Cohen and Manafort news, now regrets she can’t declare her refusal to meet with the nominee, too.
In the face of Democrats’ varied protestations, Grassley has stated unequivocally that Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing will begin in one short week. We shudder to think what argument Schumer and the Democrats will come up with between now and then.
