Subscribe
Subscribe

Tim Kaine Is Flat-Out Lying About Neil Gorsuch

By Mark Hemingway

A few days ago, Sen. Tim Kaine tweeted the following about Judge Neil Gorsuch:


It’s outrageous to suggest that Gorsuch referred to contraceptive use as “the wrongdoing of others,” much less that he did so “cavalierly.” The reference to “wrongdoing” comes from the judge’s 10th Circuit opinion on the Hobby Lobby case, which is about whether the government can force private companies to pay for birth control and/or abortifacients for their employees when it goes against the owners’ religious beliefs: “All of us face the problem of complicity. All of us must answer for ourselves whether and to what degree we are willing to be involved in the wrongdoing of others.”

Feel free to read Gorsuch’s full opinion, but it’s quite clear that his reference to “the wrongdoing of others” describes the broad legal principle of “complicity” underlying the argument, and it is stunningly dishonest to argue he’s saying birth control use is wrong.

Nonetheless, the Washington Post’s fact checker gives Kaine an incredible amount of latitude on this statement misrepresenting Gorsuch, concluding that “the tweet on its own would have received at least Three or Four Pinocchios, as it takes Gorsuch’s words way out of context.” Then the fact checker goes on to say this:

However, Kaine has issued a statement and a six-page explanation that he released publicly that supplement the tweet. Separately, he provided a nearly 1,000-word legal explanation that we linked above. When you dig beyond the 140 characters, it becomes clear that Kaine is making an interpretation of Gorsuch’s phrasing, and arguing why he interprets it as such. We will not rate this claim, as we do not fact-check opinion, but certainly readers can judge for themselves whether Kaine’s interpretation goes too far.

Over at Bloomberg, Ramesh Ponnuru isn’t favorably impressed by either Kaine’s reasoning or the Post’s odd deference to it:

Kaine makes two arguments in passing. One is an appeal to his authority: He has clerked for appeals courts, practiced law, and read many Gorsuch opinions. This is evidence that Kaine is capable of reading Gorsuch’s opinion in Hobby Lobby competently. It is not evidence that he is doing so honestly. The senator’s second argument is that Gorsuch could have ruled that Hobby Lobby had a right to sue under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but that he went out of his way to rule that the Green family also had that right. So did three other judges in Gorsuch’s circuit, including an Obama appointee. But even if Gorsuch’s judgment on this issue was as “unusual” as Kaine claims, it does nothing to establish that Gorsuch takes the view of contraception that Kaine attributes to him. Kaine’s main argument is that Gorsuch didn’t have to write about complicity and wrongdoing at all to decide the case, and his doing so was “gratuitous and insulting.” All he had to do, according to the senator, was decide whether Hobby Lobby could sue the Obama administration under the religious-freedom law. Kaine claims that’s how other courts, including the Supreme Court, decided the issue. He is demonstrably wrong about all of this.

Do go ahead and read the rest of Ponnuru’s damning column. Kaine should not be given a pass on such transparently dishonest sophistry.

Related Content

Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

NEWS

POLICY

COMMENTARY

RESTORING AMERICA