[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 158 (Tuesday, September 25, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6290-S6291]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

  Mr. President, before I close, I want to take a moment to express my 
profound disappointment with my Democratic colleagues.
  It came as no surprise that Democrats were determined to oppose Judge 
Kavanaugh's nomination. It has become abundantly clear in this Congress 
that Democrats consider being nominated by a Republican President 
disqualifies a person from serving on the Supreme Court. It doesn't 
matter how mainstream you are, how widely respected, or how fair and 
impartial, if you are nominated by a Republican President, you are out.
  As I said, it came as no surprise that Democrats were determined to 
fight Judge Kavanaugh's nomination. The ink on the nomination was 
scarcely dry before the Democratic leader had announced he was going to 
``fight this nomination with everything I've got.''
  While I expect the Democrats to fight Judge Kavanaugh's nomination, I 
expected them to do so honorably. I expected them to make their 
objections known, to grill Judge Kavanaugh in the hearing, and then to 
cast their votes against the judge, but that is not what happened.
  As it became clear that Judge Kavanaugh was headed toward a vote and 
confirmation, it was leaked that the ranking member on the Senate 
Judiciary Committee had a letter containing an unsubstantiated 
allegation against Judge Kavanaugh regarding an alleged incident when 
he was in high school. The ranking member had received this letter at 
the end of July but chose to sit on it for a month and a half without 
discussing its existence with Republicans.
  If the ranking member thought this allegation was credible, she had 
an absolute responsibility to bring it up immediately so it could be 
addressed. Holding it until a politically opportune moment was a 
betrayal of her obligation as a leader on the committee.
  On the other hand, if she thought the allegation to be false--which 
is the only possible justification for her decision to sit on the 
allegation for 6 weeks--then the subsequent decision by Democrats to 
exploit the allegation in an attempt to derail Judge Kavanaugh's 
confirmation is, frankly, despicable. Either way, it is clear that from 
the beginning, Democrats operated without a shred of real concern for 
either the individual who made the allegation against Judge Kavanaugh 
or for the integrity of the confirmation process.
  Now, after a fishing expedition by Democrats, the New Yorker has 
reported an accusation from Judge Kavanaugh's freshman year in college 
made by a woman who has admitted her memory of the event is hazy and 
that she can't be sure Judge Kavanaugh is the individual she has in 
mind.
  The New York Times--not what anyone would call a conservative 
newspaper--declined to publish the allegation because it could not find 
anyone to corroborate the story, despite contacting ``several dozen 
people.'' Yet Democrats have seized on this hazy, unsubstantiated 
story--a story so shaky that as I have mentioned, the New York Times 
refused to even print it--and are using that to call for further delays 
in the confirmation process.
  That is not a concern for the truth; it is politics, pure and simple; 
it is attacking someone's character; and it is a serious matter. If you 
are going to

[[Page S6291]]

impugn someone's character, you need to have actual evidence to back it 
up, not a story that even the accuser herself has called into question.
  Is this what Democrats want subsequent Supreme Court confirmations to 
look like, a hyperpartisan process in which character attacks don't 
have to be backed up with actual evidence, in which innuendo can 
substitute for information, and where a presumption of guilt is the 
order of the day, no matter how shaky or unsubstantiated the 
allegations?
  I will say it again. I am deeply disappointed in my Democratic 
colleagues.
  I look forward to hearing from Judge Kavanaugh later this week.