[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 141 (Thursday, August 23, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S5873]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

  Madam President, the recent legal developments for Mr. Manafort and 
Mr. Cohen shed an entirely different light on Judge Kavanaugh's 
nomination to the Supreme Court. It is conceivable that down the road 
the Supreme Court could be faced with a decision as to whether a 
sitting President can be subpoenaed or indicted--something the Court 
has not yet ruled on.
  In my meeting with Judge Kavanaugh, he not only refused to answer 
crucial questions about whether Roe, Casey, or cases involving the ACA 
were correctly decided, he even refused to affirm that a President must 
comply with a duly issued subpoena, even in a criminal investigation 
that concerns vital national security.
  Considering that Judge Kavanaugh has such a voluminous record on the 
issue of Executive authority, on which he seems to take an almost 
monarchical view, his refusal to say a President must comply with a 
subpoena should give everyone--everyone--great pause. Just as the 
President is implicated in criminal activity, the Senate is considering 
the nomination of someone to the Supreme Court who believes that 
sitting Presidents are virtually immune from legal jeopardy.
  I understand that my Republican colleagues don't want to delay 
hearings for Judge Kavanaugh despite this overwhelmingly good reason to 
do so, made even more piquant by yesterday's events with Mr. Cohen and 
Mr. Manafort. I still believe that Chairman Grassley and Leader 
McConnell should consider--given the President's legal trouble, given 
the fact that the majority of the Senate has not yet had a chance to 
review or even access Judge Kavanaugh's full records and what he might 
feel about Executive power, I feel that we should hit pause on the 
hearing. It makes logical sense.
  Senators should be wary of the unknowns in Judge Kavanaugh's hidden 
record. He has been a hard-right Republican warrior for much of his 
career before he got on the bench. When he got on the bench, he was 
still a hard-right warrior in the decisions he made. President Trump 
didn't vet him any better than he vetted Scott Pruitt, Tom Price, or 
any of the other catastrophic appointments he made to the Cabinet. It 
will be a rude awakening for Senators to find out after a confirmation 
vote that the nominee had a number of issues in his past that the 
Senate did not properly consider.
  I repeat my plea. We should delay Judge Kavanaugh's hearing at the 
very minimum until the full record of everything he has said and done 
on Executive authority is made public.