President Donald Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court to fill the vacancy opened by the resignation of Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy last month.
For a dozen years, Kavanaugh has been a judge on the powerful D.C. Court of Appeals, the court that handles many government-related cases and is the last stop before the Supreme Court for major constitutional issues. His has been a consistently conservative voice on the court. As a young lawyer, he clerked for Justice Kennedy.
Kavanaugh has suggested that Congress should pass a law to prevent a president from any legal action, private or public, except impeachment as provided by the Constitution. While working for President George W. Bush, he took a broad view of the government power to conduct rigorous interrogations, labelled “torture” by critics, of terrorists. And, while working with Special Prosecutor Ken Starr who investigated President Bill Clinton, Kavanaugh authored a memo arguing for an expansive understanding of what constituted obstruction of justice, the charge many Trump campaign aides are facing in the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Speaking at the White House, Judge Kavanaugh spoke about his Catholic faith. He said that the Catholic faith community does not agree about many issues but they all agree about “service.” He noted the presence of Fr John Enzler, director of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of Washington, for whom Kavanaugh served as an altar boy 40 years ago. Kavanaugh still volunteers at Catholic Charities to feed the homeless. He also spoke about the fact that he coaches his daughters’ basketball team at Blessed Sacrament School in Chevy Chase.
Abortion is likely to dominate the debate over Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Justice Kennedy was the sole Republican appointee who sided with the court’s four Democratic appointees to uphold the constitutional right to procure an abortion. He sometimes sided with the conservative justices to uphold restrictions on that right, but he did not challenge the right itself. Kavanaugh could be the needed fifth vote to overturn the 45-year precedents upholding a woman’s right to an abortion.
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