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[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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