Trump And Kavanaugh – Two Of A Kind

Maybe I’m just hypersensitive to the boundaries that keep on getting obliterated and the creeping but continual drift toward authoritarianism under Trump and the GOP, but it strikes me that the restrictions that are clearly being put on the FBI in actually investigating the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh looks remarkably like the White House using the FBI to fulfill a political rather than a criminal justice objective.

I understand that the nature of a background investigation is far different than an actual criminal one. Even so, the base reality is that the White House, with input from a handful of Republican Senators, is essentially directing, if not micromanaging, an FBI investigation in order to reach a specific result. In doing so, it is merely another example of the erosion of the independence of the Department of Justice that Trump and especially his co-conspirators in the House of Representatives have abetted.

Way back in 1972, Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to tell the FBI not to investigate the Watergate burglars because it would interfere with an ongoing operation. That directive became part of the Article 1 of his impeachment, which dealt with Nixon’s multiple efforts to obstruct justice. If you believe that one of the reasons that such a problem candidate like Kavanaugh was actually nominated is that he seems inclined to rule that the President should be immune from criminal investigations, then restricting the FBI investigation in order to get Kavanaugh confirmed is not that far removed from what Nixon did with the CIA and FBI in 1972.

I would also add that Trump’s remarkable public indifference to the breadth of the FBI investigation is clearly disinformation, at minimum, and is directly opposed by the information that we have from the FBI and reports from potential witnesses. It is not news that Trump brazenly lies, nor is it news that he continually attempts to obstruct justice by interfering in ongoing investigations of his campaign, administration, or business. His restrictions on the FBI’s Kavanaugh investigation is a far less egregious obstruction but one nonetheless.

Separately, it is simply mind-blowing that Republicans and Trump are still pushing ahead with Kavanaugh’s confirmation. The fact that only potentially three GOP Senators are apparently troubled by Kavanaugh’s partisan rage and lack of proper temperament under pressure is especially troubling. More importantly, any other nominee so massively unpopular, so tainted on the issues of truthfulness and temperament, and interested in the integrity of the Court as opposed to his own enlarged sense of entitlement would withdraw his nomination while still maintaining his innocence. As Laurence Tribe wrote today, Kavanaugh’s partisanship and potential conflicts of interest would require his recusal across “a very broad slice of the Supreme Court’s docket during his lifetime tenure as a justice”. It is clear, based on the hearings alone, that Kavanaugh will resist those calls for recusal, tainting every one of those cases.

Trump and Kavanaugh are two of a kind, apparently serial liars who can not live with reality of how they became rich and powerful and viscerally unable to withstand any real scrutiny. The hubris and greed of Trump and Kavanaugh are unbounded and destructive to the country as a whole.