The republican President Donald Trump picked Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a former Justice Kennedy’s clerk and the consummate Washington DC insider to replace the retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. He has been involved in just about every politically conservative case like the death of Vincent Foster, an associate of the Clinton family and the Ken Starr investigation into President Bill Clinton’s misdeeds to where he has been referred to as the “Forrest Gump” of legal politics.

But more importantly, the president has picked the one judge who has actually written a 2009 law review opinion along the lines that it is thinking that not only shouldn’t the president not be indited while serving in office, but he shouldn’t even be investigated, and that the US Congress should pass a law preventing these actions. And so this selection makes perfect sense.

The president knew that this was the one justice who could possibly have his back. It is my personal opinion that this judge would have been the president’s last pick out of the final four, as he was a republican President George W. Bush’s pick, where it not for his writings on presidential powers.

In addition, he will most likely rule against many of the rights that most Americans have come to take for granted, like pre-existing health issues not being covered by health insurance companies, women’s access to abortions, voting rights, etc.

It is important to note that he was the one who wrote the dissenting opinion where 2 other justices concurred, when the appellate court ruled 6-3 in favor of a 17 year old migrant having access to an abortion .

As per a 10/24/18 CNN report by Ariane de Vogue and Emanuella Grinberg, “A federal appeals court on Tuesday cleared the way for an undocumented teen in detention in Texas to end her pregnancy against the objections of the Trump administration.”

Here’s the rest of the story…

On July 9, 2018, Dylan Matthews of VOX penned the following report, “Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick, explained” (“He’s a veteran of every conservative fight from the Clinton impeachment to the fight against Obamacare.”)

Excerpts:

“Donald Trump on Monday (7/9/18) night chose Brett Kavanaugh, a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, to replace Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.”

“Kavanaugh, 53, is a candidate straight out of Supreme Court central casting: He went to Yale and Yale Law (every current justice either attended that school or Harvard Law); he clerked for two federal appellate judges, including the well-known Alex Kozinski; worked in the solicitor general’s office in the George H.W. Bush administration; and then clerked for Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Since 2006, he has sat on the DC Circuit, which also produced current justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It’s not for nothing that the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo, who has been Trump’s most important adviser on court nominations, singled Kavanaugh out as one of the most promising contenders for Kennedy’s seat.”

“His resumé is the one every ambitious college Republican hoping to be on the Supreme Court one day dreams of building. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) once called him the “Forrest Gump of Republican politics.” But the prospect of his nomination sparked substantial debate among movement conservatives even before Trump picked him. Kavanaugh has his defenders, but concern has been growing in right-wing legal circles about his decisions in religious liberty cases and on Obamacare. Even cautiously pro-Kavanaugh writers are skeptical he’s the best possible pick. “There’s a difference between a home run and a grand slam,” as National Review’s David French put it.”

“Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has expressed concern that Kavanaugh’s long track record will produce too many documents for the Senate to pore over, elongating the confirmation process and making it hard to get Kavanaugh on the court quickly.”

“That said, Kavanaugh would almost certainly fall to the right of Anthony Kennedy as a Supreme Court justice, and enable a rightward shift in the Court’s jurisprudence for years or decades to come. Even more concerning for liberals, he has suggested enhancing the president’s power to block criminal and civil actions against him, a potentially worrisome position when the president nominating him is under investigation and facing multiple lawsuits.”

Kavanaugh’s career before the Supreme Court

“Born and raised in suburban Maryland, the son of two lawyers (his mother a trial judge), Kavanaugh was educated at the tony all-boys Catholic high school Georgetown Prep, where he was two years ahead of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch”

“Kavanaugh’s first legal writings came in a 1989 note for the Yale Law Review, where he also served as notes editor. The piece concerned the 1986 Supreme Court case Batson v. Kentucky, a landmark ruling that barred prosecutors from excluding jurors from cases based solely on their race.”

“In between his appellate clerkships and his time with Kennedy, Kavanaugh worked in the solicitor general’s office under George H.W. Bush. The solicitor general is a Justice Department official who represents the federal government before the Supreme Court; the office offers some of the most interesting and high-stakes legal work in Washington, and junior attorney positions there are highly coveted. The SG under George W. Bush was Kenneth Starr, who took a shine to Kavanaugh and hired him to join the independent counsel’s office in 1994.”

“Once on Starr’s team, Kavanaugh was tasked with investigating the death of deputy White House counsel Vince Foster in 1994, which many conservatives believed (absurdly) to be suspicious and a murder rather than a suicide. Kavanaugh and the rest of Starr’s investigators concluded that it was indeed a suicide.”

“The year following his report’s release, Kavanaugh argued the only Supreme Court case of his career, claiming that he could compel Foster’s lawyer to turn over notes on their conversation shortly before Foster’s death. (The Court rejected that argument, 6-3, with conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist writing that attorney-client privilege precluded the notes’ release, and Kavanaugh’s former boss Kennedy joining the majority.)”

“Eventually, Kavanaugh, and the rest of Starr’s team, moved on from the substance of the Whitewater real estate deal to the matter of Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. In his history of the investigation, The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr, Duquesne University’s Ken Gormley notes that Kavanaugh, “considered one of Starr’s intellectual heavy-lifters, pushed hardest to confront Clinton with some of the dirtiest facts linked to his sexual indiscretions with Lewinsky.” Gormley continues:”

“In a memo to “Judge Starr” (with a copy to “All Attorneys”), dated just two days before the grand jury showdown, Kavanaugh disclosed a stark division within [the Office of the Independent Counsel] over how to handle this slippery president. He wrote:”

“After reflecting this evening, I am strongly opposed to giving the President any “break” … unless before his questioning on Monday, he either i) resigns or ii) confesses perjury and issues a public apology to you. I have tried hard to bend over backwards and to be fair to him. … In the end, I am convinced that there really are [no reasonable defenses]. The idea of going easy on him at the questioning is thus abhorrent to me…”

“[T]he President has disgraced his Office, the legal system, and the American people by having sex with a 22-year-old intern and turning her life into a shambles — callous and disgusting behavior that has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle. He has committed perjury (at least) in the [Paula] Jones case. … He has tried to disgrace [Ken Starr] and this Office with a sustained propaganda campaign that would make Nixon blush.”

“Kavanaugh listed 10 sample questions, however explicit and unsavory, that he believed Starr and his questioners should ask. They included the following:”

…”If Monica Lewinsky says that you ejaculated into her mouth on two occasions in the Oval Office area, would she be lying?”

“If Monica Lewinsky says that on several occasions you had her give [you] oral sex, made her stop, and then ejaculated into the sink in the bathroom off the Oval Office, would she be lying?”

“If Monica Lewinsky says that you masturbated into a trashcan, would she [be] lying?”

“Starr’s team didn’t ask those precise questions, but did ask similar ones (such as “If Monica Lewinsky says that you used a cigar as a sexual aid, would she be lying?”). After working with Starr, Kavanaugh continued to compile a legal record that would lead to Durbin’s description of him as “the Zelig or Forrest Gump of Republican politics. You show up at every scene of the crime … whether it is Elián González or the Starr Report, you are there.”

“And indeed, Kavanaugh would represent the 6-year-old González pro bono in an attempt to keep him from being deported to Cuba in 2000. (González was eventually returned to his father in Cuba, where he still lives today.) Kavanaugh also worked on Bush’s legal team during the 2000 Florida recount, which resulted in Bush winning a party-line Supreme Court vote to install him in office.”

“Once Bush was president, Kavanaugh worked in his White House counsel’s office from 2001 to 2003, and then from 2003 to 2006 as his staff secretary, the person charged with providing briefing materials and other documents to the president. In 2003, Bush appointed Kavanaugh to his post on the DC Circuit, but he languished in the Senate until 2006, in the aftermath of the Gang of 14 deal, to clear Bush appellate court appointments.”

“In an excellent profile of Kavanaugh for Ozy, Daniel Malloy explains that Kavanaugh’s history of partisan legal service delayed his confirmation:”

“Given Kavanaugh’s GOP track record and lack of judicial experience, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the nomination “not just a drop of salt in the partisan wounds; it is the whole shaker.” Kavanaugh, calm and poised during his hearings, dodged questions about White House debates on judges and torture. He said he would follow Supreme Court precedent on abortion rights but wouldn’t give a personal view on the Roe v. Wade decision.”

Link to entire article: Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s Supreme Court finalist, explained

See: President Trump’s Supreme Court Pick: Brett Kavanaugh | PolitiFact