[S]en. Patrick Leahy will vote against Judge Brett Kavanaugh for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, saying the judge had “cast aside truth in pursuit of raw ambition.”
Leahy, D-Vt., issued his verdict in a Washington Post op-ed on Thursday.
After a contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearing last week, which saw Leahy press Kavanaugh on his knowledge of stolen emails from Democratic senators during the Bush Administration, the Vermont senator said he would vote against confirming Kavanaugh next Thursday.
“Setting aside my concerns about what a Justice Kavanaugh would mean for the rights of Americans, I cannot support a nominee for a lifetime seat to our highest court who cast aside truth in pursuit of raw ambition. Unimpeachable integrity must never be optional,” Leahy wrote in the Washington Post.
During two days of questioning Leahy asked about correspondence between Kavanaugh and Manuel Miranda, a former Republican staff member responsible for promulgating stolen information during Kavanaugh’s time as a lawyer for the White House under President George W. Bush.
Kavanaugh repeatedly said he had not been aware that any documents or information he had received from Miranda had been stolen and the information shared with him had never seemed out of the ordinary for what was discussed among White House counsel staff.
But Leahy says that Kavanaugh misled the Senate Judiciary Committee last week as well as in testimony in 2004 and 2006 confirmation hearings for a federal judge appointment.
“I make no claim that Kavanaugh is a bad person. But when his prior confirmation to our nation’s ‘second highest court’ was in jeopardy, he repeatedly misled the Senate when the truth might have placed that job out of reach,” Leahy wrote.
Kavanaugh’s answers to questions regarding Miranda mirror those he gave during those Bush-era confirmation hearings, but he also denied receiving documents that even appeared to be prepared by Democratic staff.
Leahy seemed to prove those statements false when he released documents showing an email between Miranda and Kavanaugh from 2003 in which Miranda forwarded a draft letter written by Leahy and other judiciary Democrats to then Majority Leader Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., before it was made public.
“But here’s the thing, you had the full text of my letter in your inbox before anything had been said about it publicly. Did you find it at all unusual to be receiving a draft letter from Democratic senators to each other before any mention of it was made public?” Leahy asked Kavanaugh to which the judge responded in the negative.
In spite of these questions raised around Kavanaugh’s truthfulness, as well as his views on presidential powers, women’s rights, and torture and detention policy, it looks like a foregone conclusion that he will be confirmed for the Supreme Court.
Moderate Republicans such as Sen. Susan Collins, R-Me. who are considered mostly likely swing votes, seem to be content to vote to confirm Kavanaugh, and some Democrats who are facing re-election challenges this year have also indicated they may support Kavanaugh.
On Thursday, Sen Dianne Feinstein, D-CA., referred information she had obtained on Kavanaugh to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,”Feinstein said in a statement. “That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities,” she said.
The letter reportedly describes an incident in which a teenage Kavanaugh and a male friend trapped a teenage girl in a bedroom during a party and tried to assault her, but the young woman was able to extricate herself from the situation and leave the room before anything else occurred, according to a New York Times report.
Through a statement from the White House to the New York Times, Kavanaugh denied that the incident ever happened.
“I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation,” he said. “I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”