Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., will not be meeting with Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, saying doing so would be an “empty” and “deceptive charade.”
Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement he hadn’t been planning to meet privately with Kavanaugh and “certainly will not” do so following the conviction of Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, and guilty plea from Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney.
“This meeting would be an empty, deceptive charade after his evasive and meaningless answers to my colleagues,” Blumenthal said.
The Connecticut Democrat criticized Kavanaugh for failing to urge the Trump administration to release documents from his tenure working as staff secretary for former President George W. Bush and said the refusal from Senate Republicans to delay Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, which is scheduled to begin Sept. 4, indicates a “rush to judgment.”
Senate Democrats have taken issue with Republicans opposition to releasing records from Kavanaugh’s time as staff secretary, which they say provide information about his thinking on controversial issues that arose during the Bush administration. But GOP Senate leaders argue the request for the documents is an attempt to obstruct Kavanaugh’s confirmation process.
Access to Kavanaugh’s documents had emerged as a flashpoint in his confirmation battle, but the legal troubles for Manafort and Cohen, and Trump’s involvement with the latter, have led Democrats to claim Kavanaugh’s nomination is tainted.
“Judge Kavanaugh is the nominee of a president who is implicated in serious criminal lawbreaking—wrongdoing that corrupted the president’s own election,” Blumenthal said. “I will not participate in the Republican leadership’s sham process by meeting with this nominee.”
Manafort was found guilty Tuesday on five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failing to file a report of foreign bank and financial accounts.
Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts Tuesday, including two campaign finance charges related to hush-money payments he made just before the 2016 election to two women who alleged to have had extramarital affairs with Trump.
Cohen admitted the payments to former Playboy model Karen McDougal and porn star Stormy Daniels were made “in coordination with, and at the direction of, a candidate for federal office.”
Though Trump is not named in court documents related to Cohen’s case, a filing refers to “Individual-1” who began his presidential campaign on June 16, 2015 and became president in January 2017.
Following Cohen’s guilty plea, some Senate Democrats called for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to delay Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing.
Grassley, however, said he would not do so.
