Sen. Patrick Leahy will vote against Judge Brett Kavanaugh for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, saying the judge had “cast aside truth in pursuit of raw ambition.”
Leahy, D-Vt., issued his verdict in a Washington Post op-ed on Thursday.
After a contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearing last week, which saw Leahy press Kavanaugh on his knowledge of stolen emails from Democratic senators during the Bush Administration, the Vermont senator said he would vote against confirming Kavanaugh on Thursday.
“Setting aside my concerns about what a Justice Kavanaugh would mean for the rights of Americans, I cannot support a nominee for a lifetime seat to our highest court who cast aside truth in pursuit of raw ambition. Unimpeachable integrity must never be optional,” Leahy wrote in The Washington Post.
During two days of questioning Leahy asked about correspondence between Kavanaugh and Manuel Miranda, a former Republican staff member responsible for promulgating stolen information during Kavanaugh’s time as a lawyer for the White House under President George W. Bush.
Kavanaugh repeatedly said he had not been aware that any documents or information he had received from Miranda had been stolen and the information shared with him had never seemed out of the ordinary for what was discussed among White House counsel staff.
But Leahy says that Kavanaugh misled the Senate Judiciary Committee last week as well as in testimony in 2004 and 2006 confirmation hearings for a federal judge appointment.
“I make no claim that Kavanaugh is a bad person. But when his prior confirmation to our nation’s ‘second highest court’ was in jeopardy, he repeatedly misled the Senate when the truth might have placed that job out of reach,” Leahy wrote.
Kavanaugh’s answers to questions regarding Miranda mirror those he gave during those Bush-era confirmation hearings, but he also denied receiving documents that even appeared to be prepared by Democratic staff.
Leahy seemed to prove those statements false when he released documents showing an email between Miranda and Kavanaugh from 2003 in which Miranda forwarded a draft letter written by Leahy and other judiciary Democrats to then Majority Leader Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., before it was made public.
“But here’s the thing, you had the full text of my letter in your inbox before anything had been said about it publicly. Did you find it at all unusual to be receiving a draft letter from Democratic senators to each other before any mention of it was made public?” Leahy asked Kavanaugh to which the judge responded in the negative.
In spite of these questions raised around Kavanaugh’s truthfulness, as well as his views on presidential powers, women’s rights, and torture and detention policy, it looks like a foregone conclusion that he will be confirmed for the Supreme Court.
Moderate Republicans such as Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who are considered mostly likely swing votes, seem to be content to vote to confirm Kavanaugh.