{"id":602022,"date":"2018-07-10T09:54:37","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T15:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=602022"},"modified":"2018-07-10T09:54:37","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T15:54:37","slug":"who-is-brett-kavanaugh-a-supreme-court-reading-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/07\/who-is-brett-kavanaugh-a-supreme-court-reading-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Is Brett Kavanaugh? A Supreme Court reading guide"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_602030\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-602030\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/The_Kavanaugh_family_and_Donald_Trump-771x501.jpg\" alt=\"Brett Kavanaugh\" width=\"771\" height=\"501\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/The_Kavanaugh_family_and_Donald_Trump-771x501.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/The_Kavanaugh_family_and_Donald_Trump-336x218.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/The_Kavanaugh_family_and_Donald_Trump-768x499.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/The_Kavanaugh_family_and_Donald_Trump.jpg 1114w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">White House photo<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brett Kavanaugh and his family with President Donald Trump.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>President Trump on Monday night nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the seat on the U.S. Supreme Court that Justice Anthony Kennedy will vacate at the end of the month. Kavanaugh is a judge on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Below, we\u2019ve gathered some of the best reporting on Kavanaugh.<\/p>\n<p>Did we miss anything? Leave a link in the comments or tweet to us with #scotusnominee.<\/p>\n<h3>Potential Nominee Profile: Brett Kavanaugh<\/h3>\n<p><strong>SCOTUSblog, June 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>SCOTUSblog\u2019s profile of Kavanaugh provides a comprehensive summary of the judge\u2019s background, from his upbringing in the Washington area to his college and law school years at Yale to his prestigious positions in various parts of the federal government. As the profile notes, Kavanaugh was a law clerk for Kennedy, whom he has been nominated to replace. The piece offers a highlight reel of Kavanaugh\u2019s time on the federal appeals court in Washington. Ultimately, the article concludes, Kavanaugh \u201cbrings a pragmatic approach to judging,\u201d albeit with a serious conservative bent.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/2018\/06\/potential-nominee-profile-brett-kavanaugh\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Brett Kavanaugh, a Conservative Stalwart in Political Fights and on the Bench<\/h3>\n<p><strong>New York Times, July 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/who-is-brett-kavanaugh-a-supreme-court-reading-guide\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ProPublica<\/a>, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom.\u00a0Sign up for their\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.propublica.org\/forms\/newsletter_daily_email\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The New York Times\u2019 Adam Liptak examines Kavanaugh\u2019s personal and professional history. The profile depicts Kavanaugh as a decidedly conservative Washington insider but hardly a rank partisan. He\u2019s known as a nuanced and careful thinker, and although his judicial opinions are often lauded by voices on the right, he has shied away from absolutist positions, at times to the chagrin of conservatives. He has \u201cformed lifelong friendships with liberals, many of whom praise his intellect and civility,\u201d and those who worked with him before he became a judge described him as \u201coften a moderating force.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/07\/09\/us\/politics\/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-trump.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Kavanaugh Paper Chase Threatens to Draw Out Confirmation Battle<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Politico, July 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination \u201cpresents a band of government archivists and White House officials with a herculean task: wading through what could be millions of pages of records\u201d ahead of his confirmation hearings. The paper trail leads back to the two years Kavanaugh spent in Bush\u2019s White House Counsel\u2019s Office and another three years he spent as Bush\u2019s staff secretary. Politico\u2019s Josh Gerstein takes a look at how the extensive documentation of Kavanaugh\u2019s executive branch career could slow the judge\u2019s confirmation process.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2018\/07\/09\/brett-kavanaugh-vince-foster-files-703344\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Trump\u2019s Supreme Court Frontrunner Is the &#8216;Forrest Gump of Republican Politics&#8217;<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Mother Jones, June 2018<\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This Mother Jones profile casts Kavanaugh as a consummate insider of the D.C. conservative establishment who \u201cfrequently inserted himself into high-profile political battles.\u201d Kavanaugh worked on the team of Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton\u2019s affair with Monica Lewinsky. He represented the Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez in a high-profile immigration dispute in 2000, in which they sought to keep the Cuban boy in the United States. He worked on George W. Bush\u2019s legal team during the contentious 2000 presidential election recount in Florida \u2014 and went on to oversee judicial nominations in Bush\u2019s White House Counsel\u2019s Office. His ubiquity earned him the nickname the \u201cForrest Gump of Republican politics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2018\/06\/the-frontrunner-to-be-trumps-supreme-court-pick-is-the-forrest-gump-of-republican-politics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>How Four Potential Nominees Would Change the Supreme Court<\/h3>\n<p><strong>FiveThirtyEight, July 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>FiveThirtyEight draws on a tool to measure judicial ideology developed by legal scholars and political scientists to assess Kavanaugh\u2019s potential effect on the Supreme Court\u2019s jurisprudential makeup. The conclusion: a Justice Kavanaugh \u201cwould likely represent a reliably conservative voice and vote on the high court\u201d \u2014 \u201cto the right of Gorsuch and Justice Samuel Alito, and just to the left of the arch conservative Justice Clarence Thomas.\u201d That would leave Chief Justice John Roberts as the \u201cnew median justice.\u201d FiveThirtyEight adds a caveat, however, about the metric it\u2019s relying on: it\u2019s based on the ideology of the politicians who nominated a judge \u2014 in this case, Bush \u2014 rather than the judge\u2019s rulings.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fivethirtyeight.com\/features\/how-4-potential-nominees-would-change-the-supreme-court\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Brett Kavanaugh, Supreme Court Front-Runner, Once Argued Broad Grounds for Impeachment<\/h3>\n<p><strong>The New York Times, July 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Times\u2019 Mark Landler and Matt Apuzzo take a look at Kavanaugh\u2019s time on Starr\u2019s team \u2014 and its implications for Trump. Starr\u2019s report as independent counsel, which Kavanaugh co-wrote, argues that lying to staff members and misleading the public are grounds to impeach a president for obstruction of justice. That \u201cbroad definition of obstruction of justice,\u201d Landler and Apuzzo write, \u201cwould be damaging if applied to President Trump in the Russia investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/07\/05\/us\/politics\/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-impeachment.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Top Supreme Court Prospect Has Argued Presidents Should Not Be Distracted by Investigations and Lawsuits<\/h3>\n<p><strong>The Washington Post, June 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Washington Post examines a 2009 law review article in which Kavanaugh argued that a sitting president shouldn\u2019t have to deal with \u201ctime-consuming and distracting\u201d lawsuits and investigations. The distraction \u201cwould ill serve the public interest, especially in times of financial or national security crisis,\u201d Kavanaugh wrote. That, the Post notes, \u201cputs him on the record regarding a topic of intense interest to Trump \u2014 and could be a central focus of his confirmation hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/top-supreme-court-prospect-has-argued-presidents-should-not-be-distracted-by-investigations-and-lawsuits\/2018\/06\/29\/2dd9c1cc-7baa-11e8-80be-6d32e182a3bc_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Holding Court<\/h3>\n<p><strong>The New Yorker, March 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In this comment, Jeffrey Toobin describes Kavanaugh as a judge in thrall to partisan politics. Toobin characterizes Kavanaugh\u2019s work as an appeals judge as \u201cstartling.\u201d He accuses Kavanaugh of \u201cpandering to the base\u201d in a dissenting opinion he wrote in a case challenging Obamacare. Kavanaugh \u201cappeared to offer some advice to the Republicans who are challenging Obama in the election,\u201d Toobin wrote \u2014 whatever courts hold, a Republican president could simply decline to enforce the health-care law because he deems it unconstitutional.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2012\/03\/26\/holding-court\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Leading Contender to Be Trump\u2019s Supreme Court Pick Faces Questions from Social Conservatives<\/h3>\n<p><strong>The Washington Post, July 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Washington Post\u2019s Robert Acosta and Josh Dawsey survey conservative misgivings about Kavanaugh\u2019s record on the federal appeals court in Washington. Where Toobin saw Kavanaugh as a right-wing partisan, many social conservatives fear he\u2019s not enough of a hardliner. The conservative response to the White House floating Kavanaugh\u2019s name included \u201ca clamor from those who see him as out of step on health care and abortion, or too tied to George W. Bush\u2019s White House.\u201d The concerns arise from opinions Kavanaugh wrote in cases challenging the Affordable Care Act and in a recent case over the right of an immigrant teenager in federal custody to have an abortion. The judge dissented in those cases, but did not go as far as \u201cideological purists\u201d would have liked.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/leading-contender-to-be-trumps-supreme-court-pick-faces-questions-from-social-conservatives\/2018\/07\/03\/76fdadee-7ecc-11e8-b660-4d0f9f0351f1_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Federal Judge Downplayed Role in Detainee Cases<\/h3>\n<p><strong>NPR, June 2007<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>NPR\u2019s Ari Shapiro reported on what some Democratic senators saw as misleading testimony Kavanaugh provided during <a href=\"https:\/\/projects.propublica.org\/represent\/votes\/109\/senate\/2\/159\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">his 2006 confirmation hearing<\/a> to become a federal appeals judge in Washington. Kavanaugh had told Sen. Richard Durbin, D.-Illinois, that during his time in the Bush White House he was not involved in conversations about the rules governing the handling of detainees captured in the War on Terror. In fact, he had been involved in 2002 discussions about whether detainees had a right to an attorney. Durbin told NPR he felt \u201cperilously close to being lied to.\u201d (Kavanaugh, through a court spokesman, called his testimony accurate.)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=11433231\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the story \u2192<\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/pixel.propublica.org\/pixel.js\" async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Trump proposed a replacement for retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Read the best reporting to date on the Supreme Court nominee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":602030,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3307,3272,116],"class_list":["post-602022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-donald-trump","tag-u-s-supreme-court","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}