[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 148 (Monday, September 16, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S5486]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            BRETT KAVANAUGH

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on a completely different matter, for 
anybody who has been reading the news over the past few days, it has 
probably felt a little like Groundhog Day because over the last couple 
of days, leading Democrats have tried to grab on to yet another poorly 
sourced, thinly reported, unsubstantiated allegation against Justice 
Brett Kavanaugh. There they go again. Call it a 1-year anniversary 
reenactment with Senate Democrats reopening the sad and embarrassing 
chapter they wrote last September.
  The latest allegation was blasted out by a major newspaper despite 
the apparent lack of any corroborating evidence whatsoever. The 
reporting was so thin that the story ran not in the news section but on 
the opinion page. In fact, they have already had to issue an enormous 
correction. The writers conveniently failed to note that the supposed 
victim herself declined to be interviewed, and several of her friends 
say she has no memory of any such thing happening.
  We all remember this pattern from the last time around: Shoot first, 
and correct the facts later. Here is another familiar pattern: Just 
like last September, little things like facts and evidence didn't stop 
the Democrats from rushing to exploit this. Even as the media was 
trying to backpedal, a number of the Democratic Presidential candidates 
were hysterically calling for Justice Kavanaugh to be impeached on the 
basis of this flimsy, uncorroborated story. They were calling for 
Justice Kavanaugh to be impeached. That includes several of our own 
Senate colleagues. Even after the massive correction, no one in that 
group has backed off his ridiculous threat.
  This laughable suggestion is already earning scorn throughout the 
country and across the political spectrum. A majority of Senators and 
the American people rightly rejected the politics of unsubstantiated 
personal destruction just last year. It is just as transparent and 
self-serving today, 1 year later.
  Yet it would be a mistake to dismiss this as a bad case of sour 
grapes. This is not just a leftwing obsession with one man; it is part 
of a deliberate effort to attack judicial independence. Six of the 
Democratic Presidential candidates--plus one who has now quit to run 
for the Senate--have publicly flirted with packing the Supreme Court--
Court packing. Today's bold, new Democratic idea is a failed power grab 
from back in the 1930s.
  Just a few weeks ago, some Senate Democrats nakedly threatened the 
Supreme Court Justices in writing. Our colleagues sent the Court an 
outlandish brief, gravely intoning that the ``Supreme Court is not 
well,'' they said. ``The Supreme Court is not well.'' Here was the 
punch line: Either issue rulings we like or we will pack the Court.
  This is not normal political behavior. These are the actions of a 
political party whose agenda is so alien to the Constitution that it 
feels threatened by fair and faithful judges.
  This is what I would say: When the simple notion that judges should 
be faithful to the Constitution looks like an attack on your agenda, 
maybe it is your agenda that needs a makeover, not our independent 
judiciary. When you are this willing to launch unhinged personal 
attacks, you reveal a whole lot more about your own radicalism than 
about the men and women you target.
  This is my commitment and the commitment of all of my Republican 
colleagues: As long as we remain in the Senate, we will fight to 
preserve our fair and independent judiciary.

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