Democrats Still Going After Kavanaugh, Want Nadler to Obtain National Archives Records
To attack Kavanaugh in advance of any reconsideration of Roe v. Wade, they hope to obtain Kavanaugh writings about abortion from his days in G.W. Bush’s White House
In full panic mode after passage of the fetal heartbeat bills in Alabama and Georgia, Democrats and their special interest group allies are pulling out all the stops in hopes of preventing a possible overturn of Roe v. Wade. One avenue activists are exploring is by way of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler.
The NY Daily News reports:
“With the stroke of a pen, Chairman Nadler can obtain the documents that Republicans worked so hard to conceal during [Brett] Kavanaugh’s confirmation last year,” said Brian Fallon, a former Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton aid who heads the group Demand Justice.
As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Nadler can do that simply asking the National Archives
Democrats wanted to pore over millions of documents from Kavanaugh’s time in the White House of George W. Bush, where he was staff secretary and a White House lawyer. The idea was to see if, among other things, Kavanaugh had expressed opinions about the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling that would be disqualifying.
[…]
“These materials could potentially prove Kavanaugh lied under oath or they could at the very least provide a basis to insist he recuse himself from any case regarding Roe,” said Fallon. “Kavanaugh should not get the final say on abortion rights, and House Democrats should be pursuing every option at their disposal to prevent that scenario.”
Fallon amplified the NYDN piece on his Twitter feed Friday morning, noting that though Nadler had the power to help “reveal Kavanaugh’s true position on Roe v. Wade,” he hadn’t used it:
Remember when Senate Dems sued last fall for documents that could reveal Kavanaugh's true position on Roe v. Wade? Well, Jerry Nadler now has the power to obtain those very docs with a simple request letter to the National Archives … but hasn't done ithttps://t.co/SDS6a1pPYp
— Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) May 24, 2019
Fallon is the executive director of the dark money “Demand Justice” group, a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization that Influence Watch says “aims to influence the political leanings of America’s courts by supporting the appointment of liberal judicial nominees and opposing right-of-center nominees.”
While Kavanaugh can’t be removed from a case, there would no doubt be massive campaigns from the left to put pressure on him to recuse himself in the event of a supposed conflict.
Because of intense pushes from some in their voter base and activist groups like “Demand Justice,” several Democratic presidential candidates have said they are open to making some changes to the Supreme Court’s structure, changes that they believe would ultimately mold the court in their favor:
At a town hall Tuesday in Nashua, New Hampshire, California Senator Kamala Harris was confronted by a man who said Republicans “stole a Supreme Court nominee” by refusing to allow a vote on Merrick Garland during the last 10 months of Obama’s presidency.
[…]
Warren, Harris, Gillibrand and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey as well as Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg also have indicated willingness to consider restructuring the Supreme Court as a remedy to its conservative tilt, including adding adding seats or limiting the terms of justices.
In April, socialist presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said he would be on board with term limits for Supreme Court justices or possibly “rotating” appeals court judges onto the Supreme Court:
“What may make sense is, if not term limits, then rotating judges to the appeals court as well,” Sanders said at the We the People Summit in Washington. “Letting them get out of the Supreme Court and bringing in new blood.”
[…]
The path Sanders discussed is most like one proposed by the scholars Daniel Epps and Ganesh Sitaraman, who have set forth, among other options, what they described last year as a “panel solution.”
Spelling out their logic in an op-ed for Vox, the pair suggested it would be possible to “eliminate the high stakes of Supreme Court appointments” by rotating justices, “like a panel on a court of appeals.”
“Every judge on the federal court of appeals would also be appointed as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ‘panel’ would be composed of nine justices, selected at random from the full pool of associate justices,” Epps and Sitaraman wrote. “Once selected, the justices would hear cases for only two weeks, before another set of judges would replace them.”
Politico reported in March that Democrats believed expanding the number of seats on the nation’s highest court was the hard-hitting response the party needed after what happened with Merrick Garland:
But Democrats say that after Republicans blocked Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland and other lower court judges during President Barack Obama’s final term only to quickly fill those vacancies once President Donald Trump was in office, the party needs an equally bruising response.
Gillibrand said in an interview that she believes Justice Neil Gorsuch essentially possesses an illegitimate seat after Garland was denied even a committee hearing. The New York Democrat added that the Senate should move swiftly to impose strict ethics rules on the Supreme Court.
“It’s not just about expansion, it’s about depoliticizing the Supreme Court,” said Warren (D-Mass.), who mentioned bringing appellate judges onto Supreme Court cases as an option.
“It’s about depoliticizing the Supreme Court”? Who does Warren think she’s kidding?
Gillibrand, whose campaign is stalled and desperate for traction, has been arguably even more aggressive than the rest of the pack when it comes to ideas for reshaping the court. Last week she told MSNBC that “action” must be taken against Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch if they fail to uphold Roe v. Wade:
“That is the law of the land, and I think both Gorsuch and Kavanaugh lied to the Judiciary Committee when they said they would uphold precedent. And if they then go back on this — this statement they made during their confirmation hearings — I think we should look towards what we will do to address it, because we need far more oversight and accountability over these Supreme Court Justices, and if they lied in their hearings, then we should take action.”
Watch the segment below:
Gillibrand, who is also on board with the movement to purge pro-lifers from her party, did not specify the type of “action” she believed should be taken, but presumably she’s talking about impeachment.
I’m no legal expert, but I’m pretty sure that impeaching a Supreme Court Justice for ruling differently than you would like on a court case is not how any of this works.
In any event, while Nadler is key in the left’s efforts to preserve abortion rights, the additional options being floated by Democrats that could radically reshape the Supreme Court to their advantage will no doubt be very concerning to Republicans. After all, it’s not just a question of “if” Democrats will consider any of these ideas, but which ones they’ll attempt to implement and when.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
Under intense investigation, every Supreme Court justice could be disqualified for having expressed an opinion about Roe v. Wade. They could be disqualified on most issues brought to the court if that is the criteria. Judges are not uninformed blank slates.
How would one increase the number of SCOTUS Justices…and would it survive appeals to the SCOTUS?
IIRC the number of SCOTUS Justices is up to Congress. It is not enumerated in the Constitution.
yes, it didn’t start off at 9, it’s been changed more than once. FDR was the only President who seriously thought about a court packing scheme, but even with the popularity he had at the time he realized it was too politically risky to try.
Not to mention the famous Switch in Time that Saved Nine.
It’s entirely up to Congress. SCOTUS doesn’t get a say in the matter.
Of course he has a say.
When congress decides to increase the number of Justices to 13 or 15 or 25 or whatever, the President appoints them. So go ahead. Next congress it’ll be back to 9. Other funny gamesmanship will likely be sent to SCOTUS on final appeal. Wonder how that’ll go?
They can do any of these schemes, or all of them. All they have to do is amend the Constitution. Easy!
There was no need to amend the Constitution, it proved to be much easier to amended the courts instead.
Hence their insanity over Trump being able to appoint so many judges, they don’t want judges who rule based on the Constitution, they want activist judges like RBG who contort themselves to find things that don’t exist in the Constitution.
I wonder if Old Ruthy has stayed awake at any of the hearings she is supposed to judge… though I doubt that she concerns herself with listening to the arguments over listening to her political stances.
The attacks on Kavanaugh, Barr and Trump as well as the 80 plus subpoenas are all an attempt by the Democrat-Fascists in congress to silence conservatives.
““It’s about depoliticizing the Supreme Court”? Who does Warren think she’s kidding?”
Democrats always reveal what they mean by saying the opposite. Just like they always accuse others of committing crimes they are committing. That ways they force opponents to prove they are lying before they can be confronted about issues themselves.
This is all about abortion. Why it is so important to allow women to terminate the life of their child, unborn or otherwise, is totally unfathomable. But, that is a discussion for another time. For this post, I will deal with the dangers posed to the SCOTUS reaffirming Roe.
In the first place, Roe was decided on two things.
The first was a right to privacy which, if it actually existed at all, the Court failed to effectively illustrate the applicability of, in regard to abortion. The logic that was used was fuzzy at best and is ripe for reversal.
The second thing was viability of the fetus. In Roe, the Court stated that a fetus could not be aborted once it was considered viable, which was arbitrarily set, again by the Court, at 22-25 weeks. This essentially set the stage at which a human being becomes a human being at the point of viability [which was 22-25 weeks per Roe]. However, over the years, the feminist activists have moved that goal post all the way to conception. 29 states now have laws which classify a fetus, at ANY stage of development as a member of the species homo sapiens, aka a human being. People have even been successfully convicted of homicide, for injuring a woman to the point where the fetus was aborted, within the 1st trimester, even though the woman could legally abort the fetus in the same time frame. Now, legally, one can not have it both ways. Common law, as well as modern American case law, only allows for the terminating of the existence of a human being in lawful self defense or following adjudication for heinous criminal behavior. So, exactly how is it legally allowable for a mother to terminate the life of a child, except in self defense or following adjudication of heinous criminal action against the unborn child?
Abortion is only defensible if human life does not begin until birth. Up until that point, the fetus can be treated, legally, as just another piece of non-essential tissue. But, once you classify a fetus as human, at any stage of development, it becomes a minor child and all the rights enjoyed by that class of person, as well as the legal duties other have toward that class, have to be observed. This includes not allowing the mother to kill her child.
Abortion supporters know all this. And, that is why they are terrified of Roe being revisited by a SCOTUS with a fundamentalist majority. And, though Kavanaugh is really just another Roberts, they are rightly concerned that he would rule against them, because of how they treated him in his confirmation hearings.
“The first was a right to privacy which, if it actually existed at all,”
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
There you go.
The rest of that amendment quite clearly lays out the conditions necessary for the state to violate your security.
If that were true, there would have been no need to search through the emanations and penumbras.
My Lord, Val, not only did you cherry [pick my statement, BUT you didn’t even post the COMPLETE SENTENCE. Here is the whole paragraph. Read it and see if you do not get a different meaning than the one you are trying to portray.
“The first was a right to privacy which, if it actually existed at all, the Court failed to effectively illustrate the applicability of, in regard to abortion. The logic that was used was fuzzy at best and is ripe for reversal.”
Now, the Constitution gives no one a right to privacy. What it does is limit the conditions under which the Federal Government can enter your home and search it or your person. If you leave your shades up, people, including agents of the government do not have to turn away and not see what is going on inside your home. The right to privacy, was made famous in Griswold v Connecticut. Both the majority opinion and the dissenting opinions acknowledged that the right to privacy exists nowhere in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. Let me repeat a right to privacy appears NOWHERE in the Constitution or bill o Rights. The Court had to travel to the “penumbras” and “emanations” [whatever the heck those are] of other rights in order to attempt to justify ruling that “right to privacy” even exists and that it somehow applies to medical procedures. This dubious “right to privacy” was then carried over to Roe.
Now, if you have a right to privacy in your home, does that mean that a woman is legally free to kill her 5 year old in the privacy of her home. Can a man beat his wife, legally, in the privacy of their home? Can one legally manufacture or possess drugs in the privacy of his home, and possession of such drugs only becomes illegal when the drugs are removed from the privacy of the home?
As to a woman having a right to privacy with regard to her body, the kicker there is “with regard to HER body”. In the case of a pregnant woman, the fetus is not, technically “part” of the woman’s body. And, the Court in Roe knew this. That is why they included the viability requirement. What the court was saying, none to clearly, at that time, was that a fetus became a human being when it became viable, at 22-25 weeks.
If logic is applied to Roe, in today’s environment, the decision does not have a logical, or legal, leg to stand on.
No, it did not.
Did to.
That is why the Court set up trimesters, the third of which began at 25 weeks and was the currently accepted medical threshold for viability of the fetus. From the decision:
“With respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in potential life, the “compelling” point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications.
If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.” Roe v Wade
No, it did not. Your own quote contradicts you. “If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.” That is the exact opposite of your claim.
What the Court did in Roe, and what you are doing now is splitting hairs.
The Court used viability of the fetus to establish a [point at which the states could regulate abortion to protect “potential” life. In other words they seemed to believe that human life began at birth, not before. However by using the medical viability test, they were essentially agreeing that human life began at the point of viability, or “quickening” as it was sometimes called. This is the point, in the development of the fetus, where the fetus is capable of surviving outside the mother’s body.
Again, the Court can not have it both ways. If the fetus can survive outside the mother’s body, at 25 weeks of development, then it is essentially a human being, at that point. And, if it is a human being, then it is entitled to all rights and privileges accorded to all other human minor children. But, the Court wanted to allow the most liberal conditions for abortion of a fetus. That was the goal. That was the reason why the court embraced the ridiculous notion of a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy because of some vacuous “right to privacy” and then followed up with some equally lame viability argument. Once they embarked upon the argument the a fetus was potential human life, at any stage of development prior to live birth, they lost the logical and legal argument that anyone has the right to end that life without it being adjudicated for extreme cause.
Courts have attempted to argue that a fetus is “part” of a human female. They have tried to argue that a fetus is merely a possession of the mother. Courts have done everything in their power to classify a fetus as something, except the most logical thing. That a fetus is a human being, from the point of conception, and has to be treated as such. Legislatures and courts have been steadily moving that way for several years now. Legislatures have been classifying a human fetus as a human being at all stages of development from conception. The courts, in upholding homicide convictions against people for terminating the development of a fetus without the consent of the mother, either under general homicide laws or specific fetal homicide laws. Roe no longer has ANY logical or legal legs to stand on. A fetus is a member of the human race, at all stages of development, and has to be treated as such. If we embrace the notion that courts, or society, can arbitrarily classify a human being as being something other than that or, worse, arbitrarily decide to strip that human being of all rights and privileges enjoyed by other human beings, except under extreme circumstances, then we back slide to the days of slavery. Where a mother can kill her child simply because that child has not attained a certain age.
Roe is legally dead and the pro-abortion people know it.
“This is all about abortion. …” For most, it is.
I think more important are the underlying legal principles compromised by the decision made on emotional grounds, rather than constitutional. Federalism vs the States and a constrained Federal government. This is not an area described by the constitution and is best left to the States. We’ve seen that some states have ruled on extremely lax rules and some more restrictive. That’s how it supposed to work. Abortion was the emotional vehicle used to expand the Federal Government’s authority – All three branches increased in power at the same time – no competing interest balancing of power there. Since Senators are no longer appointed by the States, the States have little recourse to Federal over-reach.
Perhaps the SCOTUS will hear a case to allow them to put the Commerce Clause genie back in it’s bottle as well. That would be something.
Democrats use the hackneyed phrase the rule of law when it suits them. Roe v Wade and Obergefell v Hodges take are defended with a religious fervor bordering on fanatical.
Yet Crawford v Marion County (voter id), Heller v District of Columbia and McDonald v Chicago (2 nd Amendment rights) are consigned to the ash heap. Democrat Party embedded judges will not enforce those decisions.
It’s not just about expansion, it’s about depoliticizing the Supreme Court,” said Warren (D-Mass.), who mentioned bringing appellate judges onto Supreme Court cases as an option
About the biggest LIE EVER!
It’s a typo-she meant re-politicizing the Supreme Court… 🙂
The progressive fascists don’t really care about abortions. It’s just a way to gain the support of women.
So Ginsberg can’t vote in favor of Roe? How does this work?
I’m no legal expert, but I’m pretty sure that impeaching a Supreme Court Justice for ruling differently than you would like on a court case is not how any of this works.
It’s what the D’rats have been trying to do since about 1803. To them, impeachment is a political tool in the guise of a judicial procedure. While they haven’t been terribly successful at removing Republicans, Whigs or Federalists for the high crime of not being Democrats, they’ve never been seriously slapped down for trying, either.
I think increasing the size of the Supreme Court is a great idea. It’s so important that we should start now. I say, increase the number of justices from 9 to 15, and let Mr. Trump nominate the additional six justices.
Oh, wait, that’s not what you meant, Senator Warren? Senator Harris? Hello? Is this thing on…
Now we know the ideological bent of the witch hunters, warlock prosecutors, and life deemed unworthy of life (e.g. selective-child) judges. Liberalism is a divergent (e.g. generational) ideology, which creates a perception of tolerance. Progressivism is monotonic. Conservativism moderates the former. #PrinciplesMatter
I’m fine with Kavanaugh recusing himself from any vote on overturning Casey. Because I think he would vote against it. Unfortunately even eliminating him would only make it, at best, 4-4, which would leave the lower court decision standing, and the lower courts have to apply Roe and Casey.
I see both Roberts and Kavanaugh voting to affirm the principles in Casey. Roberts said Roe was settled law during his confirmation. Kavanaugh probably made private promises to Susan Collins.
The Court will probably not uphold very later term Ralph Northan, Andrew Cuomo style abortions.
Since a very substantial number of abortions are carried on on black women and since blacks overwhelmingly vote Democrat, I am surprised that Democrats support abortion the way they do. Democrats use every other option available to increase the pool of voters who they know with relative certainty will vote Democrat so why would they be against abortion?
Why aren’t Demoncrats asking for Hittliary’s national archive records? There aren’t any! She violated the federal law and national security by using an illegal and insecure email server.
The truth is the leftist judges on the court always vote left. The so called conservatives are unpredictable in their voting.