Law The Search For The 114th Supreme Court Justice: The Witch-Hunt Against Judge Brett Kavanaugh

[My Spot]

There's nothing they can do about it.

 

[Strategery]

Amy Coney Barrett will be passed over, as she should be for being a religious nut.

 

[Trotsky]

Amy Coney Barrett will be passed over, as she should be for being a religious nut.

Gorsuch, Kennedy, and Alito (especially) are all pretty big religious nuts. And Clarence Thomas has the wherewithal and legal expertise of an actual nut.

Don't presume anything will disqualify a conservative appointee to....well, anything. Republicans saw the likes of Rick Perry, Betsy DeVos, and Ben Carson qualified for their stations.

 

[Trotsky]

And water is wet.

In any case, Garland is eminently qualified and competent. More so than just almost everyone on that list by any non-ideological metric, and I like and admire some of the people on that list personally.

Ew. Who?

I've actually met one of the guys on the list (I'll choose not to say who) and thought he was a massive boner.

 

[Quipling]

Ew. Who?

I've actually met one of the guys on the list (I'll choose not to say who) and thought he was a massive boner.

Judge Thapar, mostly.

 

[Arkain2K]

A bit FYI for live Primetime TV viewers:

President Trump's Supreme Court Nomination Reveal Sparks Monday TV Shuffle
By Matt Webb Mitovich / July 6 2018

Some broadcast TV networks are quietly clearing the deck in anticipation of President Donald Trump’s announcement of his nominee to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.

Trump has said that he will reveal his pick this Monday, July 9 — 12 days after Kennedy announced his retirement — at 9/8c. Foreseeing inevitable news break-ins to offer coverage and analysis, broadcasters are rejiggering their primetime lineups so as to keep too much fresh summer fare from being preempted.

CBS, for example, is moving the third episode of Salvation‘s sophomore run to Monday at 10 pm, displacing a new episode of the already renewed Elementary. (An NCIS: New Orleans rerun now is slotted for 9 pm and thus will likely be preempted.)

ABC meanwhile will hit pause on The Bachelorette‘s jaunt to the Bahamas as needed to accommodate breaking news coverage, and then resume its regularly scheduled programming, airing both Bachelorette and The Proposal in full. (Local news and Jimmy Kimmel Live will in turn be subject to late starts.)

NBC, which only has American Ninja Warrior‘s Minneapolis qualifiers booked for this Monday, has yet to announce any tweaks to its line-up, while Fox as has been the case this summer has a disposable 9-1-1 rerun airing at 9 pm.

Trump is said to have narrowed his potential SCOTUS nominees down to federal judges Brett Kavanaugh, Raymond Kethledge and Amy Coney Barret. Kavanaugh and Kethledge are both former clerks for Kennedy, while Coney Barret is a University of Notre Dame Law School professor who clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

https://tvline.com/2018/07/06/trump-supreme-court-justice-nomination-july-9/

 

[Arkain2K]

Democrats are tying Trump's Supreme Court pick to the special counsel's Russia probe.
Kevin Breuninger | July 7, 2018

With a slim Republican majority in the Senate and four months before the 2018 midterm elections, President Donald Trump appears to be sprinting toward his second Supreme Court appointment with few obstacles in his way. But some Democrats are arguing for a halt by dragging special counsel Robert Mueller into the fight.

A handful of Democrats has argued that the special counsel's ongoing investigation should preclude Trump from nominating a successor to replace resigning Justice Anthony Kennedy.

While the argument may sound compelling to Democratic partisans, it doesn't have much basis in law or Supreme Court precedent, constitutional scholars tell CNBC.

Mueller's team is looking into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, as well as the possibility that Trump obstructed justice. While Trump is under investigation as part of that probe, he has been told he is not a target, The Washington Post reported in April.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., identified potential conflicts between the nomination process and the ongoing Russia probe in a judiciary committee hearing last week. “I do not believe this committee should or can in good conscience consider a nominee put forward by this president until that investigation is concluded," he said.

Booker also expressed concern that Trump's documented fondness for demanding the loyalty of his appointees could call the impartiality of his Supreme Court picks into question. That in turn, he said, could potentially apply to the special counsel's probe if any legal challenges to Mueller's conclusions make it all the way to the Supreme Court.

“If we’re not going to thoroughly discuss what it means to have a president with this ongoing investigation happening, who is now going to interview Supreme Court justices, and potentially continue with his tradition of doing litmus tests, loyalty tests, for that person, we could be participating in a process that could undermine that criminal investigation,” Booker said.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., also highlighted the Mueller investigation in his statement on Kennedy's retirement. Arguing that the next justice should be chosen through a thorough and deliberate process, Reed said that if Republicans "try to rush this nominee through they will also be conveniently ignoring the serious investigation into Russia’s pro-Trump campaign interference in our democracy."

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., echoed his colleagues, drawing the same line in the sand in a tweet Friday morning.



Experts say there's no law or tradition barring presidents from nominating judges while they're under investigation.

"I don’t know of any legal or historical basis for that," said William Baude, a law professor at the University of Chicago.

Past presidents have set the opposite standard, in fact, Baude pointed out that President Bill Clinton had nominated Judge Stephen Breyer to the Supreme Court months after independent counsel Robert Fiske was appointed to investigate the Whitewater scandal.

"There's certainly no statutory law or constitutional provision saying that a president under investigation can't nominate judges," said Josh Chafetz, a law professor at Cornell University and the author of multiple books about politics and the constitution.

But the rhetoric might touch an alarmist nerve among Democratic voters that could galvanize turnout for the midterm elections in November.

Suggesting that Trump's Supreme Court pick could potentially undermine the Russia probe — as Booker did — may give Democrats another tool in their arsenal to accuse Republicans of appeasing Trump.

"Democrats realize that, most likely, Trump's nominee will get confirmed, and they're looking for an angle to make the case to voters that this is yet another reason that GOP members of Congress should be voted out," Chafetz said.

"Who knows if it will work as campaign rhetoric, but it's not a crazy gambit," he added.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/06/dem...-court-pick-to-special-counsel-heres-why.html

 

[HomerThompson]

Democrats are tying Trump's Supreme Court pick to the special counsel's Russia probe.
Kevin Breuninger | July 7, 2018

With a slim Republican majority in the Senate and four months before the 2018 midterm elections, President Donald Trump appears to be sprinting toward his second Supreme Court appointment with few obstacles in his way. But some Democrats are arguing for a halt by dragging special counsel Robert Mueller into the fight.

A handful of Democrats has argued that the special counsel's ongoing investigation should preclude Trump from nominating a successor to replace resigning Justice Anthony Kennedy.

While the argument may sound compelling to Democratic partisans, it doesn't have much basis in law or Supreme Court precedent, constitutional scholars tell CNBC.

Mueller's team is looking into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, as well as the possibility that Trump obstructed justice. While Trump is under investigation as part of that probe, he has been told he is not a target, The Washington Post reported in April.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., identified potential conflicts between the nomination process and the ongoing Russia probe in a judiciary committee hearing last week. “I do not believe this committee should or can in good conscience consider a nominee put forward by this president until that investigation is concluded," he said.

Booker also expressed concern that Trump's documented fondness for demanding the loyalty of his appointees could call the impartiality of his Supreme Court picks into question. That in turn, he said, could potentially apply to the special counsel's probe if any legal challenges to Mueller's conclusions make it all the way to the Supreme Court.

“If we’re not going to thoroughly discuss what it means to have a president with this ongoing investigation happening, who is now going to interview Supreme Court justices, and potentially continue with his tradition of doing litmus tests, loyalty tests, for that person, we could be participating in a process that could undermine that criminal investigation,” Booker said.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., also highlighted the Mueller investigation in his statement on Kennedy's retirement. Arguing that the next justice should be chosen through a thorough and deliberate process, Reed said that if Republicans "try to rush this nominee through they will also be conveniently ignoring the serious investigation into Russia’s pro-Trump campaign interference in our democracy."

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., echoed his colleagues, drawing the same line in the sand in a tweet Friday morning.



Experts say there's no law or tradition barring presidents from nominating judges while they're under investigation.

"I don’t know of any legal or historical basis for that," said William Baude, a law professor at the University of Chicago.

Past presidents have set the opposite standard, in fact, Baude pointed out that President Bill Clinton had nominated Judge Stephen Breyer to the Supreme Court months after independent counsel Robert Fiske was appointed to investigate the Whitewater scandal.

"There's certainly no statutory law or constitutional provision saying that a president under investigation can't nominate judges," said Josh Chafetz, a law professor at Cornell University and the author of multiple books about politics and the constitution.

But the rhetoric might touch an alarmist nerve among Democratic voters that could galvanize turnout for the midterm elections in November.

Suggesting that Trump's Supreme Court pick could potentially undermine the Russia probe — as Booker did — may give Democrats another tool in their arsenal to accuse Republicans of appeasing Trump.

"Democrats realize that, most likely, Trump's nominee will get confirmed, and they're looking for an angle to make the case to voters that this is yet another reason that GOP members of Congress should be voted out," Chafetz said.

"Who knows if it will work as campaign rhetoric, but it's not a crazy gambit," he added.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/06/dem...-court-pick-to-special-counsel-heres-why.html

That's a reasonably smart move, politically speaking.

Maybe the Democrats aren't completely worthless.

 

[HockeyBjj]

Just realized we’re 48 hours from the biggest meltdown since election night

 

[PHATV]

t-minus 24 hours...

Supreme Court vacancy: Prepare for game-changer, experts say...

Announcement of Trump choice nears...

Dems' long-shot plan to stop nominee...

VIDEO: Students Hate Pick -- Before Made...

 

[HereticBD]

Democrats are tying Trump's Supreme Court pick to the special counsel's Russia probe.
Kevin Breuninger | July 7, 2018

With a slim Republican majority in the Senate and four months before the 2018 midterm elections, President Donald Trump appears to be sprinting toward his second Supreme Court appointment with few obstacles in his way. But some Democrats are arguing for a halt by dragging special counsel Robert Mueller into the fight.

A handful of Democrats has argued that the special counsel's ongoing investigation should preclude Trump from nominating a successor to replace resigning Justice Anthony Kennedy.

While the argument may sound compelling to Democratic partisans, it doesn't have much basis in law or Supreme Court precedent, constitutional scholars tell CNBC.

Mueller's team is looking into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, as well as the possibility that Trump obstructed justice. While Trump is under investigation as part of that probe, he has been told he is not a target, The Washington Post reported in April.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., identified potential conflicts between the nomination process and the ongoing Russia probe in a judiciary committee hearing last week. “I do not believe this committee should or can in good conscience consider a nominee put forward by this president until that investigation is concluded," he said.

Booker also expressed concern that Trump's documented fondness for demanding the loyalty of his appointees could call the impartiality of his Supreme Court picks into question. That in turn, he said, could potentially apply to the special counsel's probe if any legal challenges to Mueller's conclusions make it all the way to the Supreme Court.

“If we’re not going to thoroughly discuss what it means to have a president with this ongoing investigation happening, who is now going to interview Supreme Court justices, and potentially continue with his tradition of doing litmus tests, loyalty tests, for that person, we could be participating in a process that could undermine that criminal investigation,” Booker said.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., also highlighted the Mueller investigation in his statement on Kennedy's retirement. Arguing that the next justice should be chosen through a thorough and deliberate process, Reed said that if Republicans "try to rush this nominee through they will also be conveniently ignoring the serious investigation into Russia’s pro-Trump campaign interference in our democracy."

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., echoed his colleagues, drawing the same line in the sand in a tweet Friday morning.



Experts say there's no law or tradition barring presidents from nominating judges while they're under investigation.

"I don’t know of any legal or historical basis for that," said William Baude, a law professor at the University of Chicago.

Past presidents have set the opposite standard, in fact, Baude pointed out that President Bill Clinton had nominated Judge Stephen Breyer to the Supreme Court months after independent counsel Robert Fiske was appointed to investigate the Whitewater scandal.

"There's certainly no statutory law or constitutional provision saying that a president under investigation can't nominate judges," said Josh Chafetz, a law professor at Cornell University and the author of multiple books about politics and the constitution.

But the rhetoric might touch an alarmist nerve among Democratic voters that could galvanize turnout for the midterm elections in November.

Suggesting that Trump's Supreme Court pick could potentially undermine the Russia probe — as Booker did — may give Democrats another tool in their arsenal to accuse Republicans of appeasing Trump.

"Democrats realize that, most likely, Trump's nominee will get confirmed, and they're looking for an angle to make the case to voters that this is yet another reason that GOP members of Congress should be voted out," Chafetz said.

"Who knows if it will work as campaign rhetoric, but it's not a crazy gambit," he added.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/06/dem...-court-pick-to-special-counsel-heres-why.html

Well, you can't blame them for trying.

 

[Arkain2K]

Just realized we’re 48 hours from the biggest meltdown since election night

"The Resistance" is much more muted this time compare to the Garland/Gorsuch saga, because the nuclear arsenal is empty this time.

I think most people, including most politicians on Capitol Hill, already accepted this nomination as a foregone conclusion. A few people like Kamala Harris are still making their grand-standing here and there, but even they know it's just barking for show and zero bite.

 

[Arkain2K]

Who are the Supreme Court Contenders?
A look at Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Thomas Hardiman and Raymond Kethledge



WASHINGTON—As the clock ticks on President Donald Trump’s choice for a Supreme Court vacancy, each of the four people under close consideration could move the court in a more conservative direction for decades.

“Republicans are holding four lottery tickets, and all of them are winners,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said Sunday in a Fox News interview.

Here’s a look at the top contenders:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-are-the-supreme-court-contenders-1531099713?mod=e2fb

 

[My Spot]

"The Resistance" is much more muted this time compare to the Garland/Gorsuch saga, because the nuclear arsenal is empty this time.

I think most people, including most politicians on Capitol Hill, already accepted this nomination as a foregone conclusion. A few people like Kamala Harris are still making their grand-standing here and there, but even they know it's just barking for show and zero bite.

lol
Maybe the "resistance" finally realized this is real life and not Star Wars.

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

Trump set to announce hotly anticipated US Supreme Court pick
Lawrence Hurley | Jul 9th 2018

WASHINGTON, July 9 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is set on Monday night to announce his nominee for a lifetime position on the U.S. Supreme Court, with four conservative federal appellate judges as the top contenders to succeed retiring long-time Justice Anthony Kennedy.

The Republican president, with an opportunity to further put his stamp on the court with the second appointee of his 18 months in office, is expected to choose among four judges with strong conservative credentials: Thomas Hardiman, Brett Kavanaugh, Raymond Kethledge and Amy Coney Barrett.

All are young enough that they could serve on the nine-member high court for decades. Trump, who has touted Supreme Court nominations as among the most important task of his presidency, is poised to make his announcement at 9 p.m. (0100 GMT Tuesday).

A person familiar with the selection process indicated Trump is narrowing the field, with Barrett the least likely among the four to be chosen.

"The president was very impressed with Barrett but said on a number of occasions it might be best to save her for a future vacancy," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Hardiman, 53, has served on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since 2007, having been appointed by Republican former President George W. Bush, after four years as a U.S. district judge in western Pennsylvania. Hardiman, a one-time cab driver from Waltham, Massachusetts who was the first member of his family to attend college, served alongside Trump's older sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, on the 3rd Circuit. She no longer hears cases.

Kavanaugh, 53, has served on the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 2006. A former White House aide under Bush who previously worked for Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who investigated Democratic former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, he faced a long confirmation battle when Bush nominated him to his current post.

Kethledge, 51, has served on the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since 2008 after also being appointed by Bush. A former aide to a Republican senator, Kethledge also previously worked as an in-house lawyer for Ford Motor Co.

Barrett, 46, has the least judicial experience of the four, with only eight months as a judge after spending most of her career as a conservative legal scholar. Barrett was appointed by Trump to the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year. Barrett, a married mother of seven and a devout Roman Catholic, is a favorite among social conservatives and conservative Christian leaders.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/20...y-anticipated-us-supreme-court-pick/23478012/

 

[reflector]

The announcement is supposed to happen at 9:00 tonight, I believe. Who do you think it will be? Will they get confirmed? Will they get voted on before the November elections?

 

[kpt018]

Merrick Garland.

 

[Johnny Mac]

I don't know, but whoever it is will be rustling jimmies!

 

[OverCoronavirus Pressure]

Ivanka because he technically can