Another Kavanaugh Flakeout The American Bar Association president tries to sandbag another nominee.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/another-kavanaugh-flakeout-1538176574
Democrats must be secretly delighted, not that they’ll admit it. A couple of GOP Senators fell on Friday for their ruse of seeking an FBI investigation of an assault accusation against Brett Kavanaugh, and now this Supreme Court nomination ordeal will continue for at least another week. Who knows what new dirt against the judge they can throw on the Senate wall?
On Friday the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Supreme Court nominee in an 11-10 party-line vote, with Arizona Senator Jeff Flake the last convert. That should have sent the nomination to the Senate floor and a vote early next week.
But then Mr. Flake had a crisis of, well, something and said he wanted another FBI investigation before a floor vote. After Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski said she agreed with Mr. Flake, GOP Senate leaders agreed to a one-week FBI probe into current accusations. President Trump obliged and put the FBI on the case again.
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The mystery is what new evidence Mr. Flake and Ms. Murkowski expect the FBI to find. The Senate this week heard six hours of public testimony from Judge Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.
The potential witnesses Ms. Ford has named have given statements under penalty of perjury saying they don’t recall the 1982 party she describes. No corroboration has materialized, leaving Democrats and the media to pick over high-school yearbook entries from 1983. Ms. Ford said Thursday that she is “100%” certain Judge Kavanaugh assaulted her. He told the Senate that he is “100%” certain of his innocence.
Now the FBI will spend a week redoing all these interviews. To what end? FBI background investigations aren’t criminal probes. They reach no conclusions. The agents conduct interviews, record what the subjects say, and put the summaries in a nominee’s file. The Senators are then expected to draw their conclusions and vote. After a week Mr. Flake and Ms. Murkowski may find themselves in the same place, since Ms. Ford’s charge is too imprecise in date, place or recollections to corroborate.
Not that even this extra week will satisfy Democrats—or Ms. Ford’s Democratic handlers. Debra Katz, Ms. Ford’s lawyer who was recommended by Democrat Dianne Feinstein, said Friday after news of the delay that “no artificial limits as to time or scope should be imposed on this investigation.”
Look for Democrats and the party’s media wing to repeat this like the Rockettes. They’re already floating that FBI Director Christopher Wray attended Yale a couple of years after Mr. Kavanaugh did, so, you know, the FBI probe they demanded may also be tainted.
The truth is that no amount of investigating by the FBI or anyone else will change a single Democratic vote. And if more accusations arise, no matter how preposterous, Democrats will demand another investigation and more interviews.
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Meanwhile, Democrats also received an in-kind political contribution Friday from the head of the American Bar Association, who sent a letter to the Senate calling for an FBI probe and delay. “The basic principles that underscore the Senate’s constitutional duty of advice and consent on federal judicial nominees require nothing less,” wrote Robert Carlson. Surely it’s a coincidence that Mr. Carlson, according to campaign-finance records at OpenSecrets.org, was a donor to Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Carlson wants to give the impression that the ABA is walking away from its previous expansive praise for Judge Kavanaugh. The ABA has a Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary that reviews nominees, and on Aug. 30 it gave Judge Kavanaugh its highest rating.
This included a glowing report on his character and competence. Dozens of law professors reviewed his writings. Comments were solicited from 471 judges, lawyers and academics. This material was collated into 1,635 pages.
The ABA committee then voted unanimously that Judge Kavanaugh is “well qualified” for the Supreme Court. Its final report quotes unnamed colleagues and observers: “His integrity is absolutely unquestioned.” “He is what he seems, very decent, humble, and honest.” “He is just the best—brilliant, a great writer, fair, and he is open-minded.”
Mr. Carlson is not a member of that committee, and he is not supposed to speak for the ABA unless the legal group has made a policy decision. In this case he is trying to sandbag his own ABA colleagues. Paul Moxley, the Utah lawyer who chairs the ABA’s judicial committee, made that clear on Friday when he wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Mr. Carlson’s letter “was not received” by his ABA committee “prior to its issuance.” Mr. Moxley added: “The ABA’s rating for Judge Kavanaugh is not affected by Mr. Carlson’s letter.”
In other words, Mr. Carlson is free-lancing for partisan purposes and the Senate should ignore him. For the rest of us, however, this is one more reason to bar the ABA from any judicial vetting. Some of us still remember the ABA’s shoddy treatment of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.
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Sooner or later Republicans have to recognize all of this for the political charade it is. Democrats don’t want to find the truth. They want to delay a vote, destroy Judge Kavanaugh’s reputation in the meantime, win Senate control in November and then leave the Supreme Court with an empty seat through 2021.
If the Senate now wants to give the FBI one more week, Mr. Flake and Ms. Murkowski should spend it getting used to the idea that Mr. Kavanaugh can’t prove that something didn’t happen. They’ll have to vote anyway.
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