Photo Credit: MSNBC/ «The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them»
To Donald Trump, the qualifications of any individual for a seat on the nation’s highest court are meaningless. He knows nothing of judicial decisions except Roe v. Wade, the reproductive rights precedent that his supporters want overturned. He has no idea how to assess any judge, beyond his own superficial impressions. He could scarcely care less what any potential nominee may think about the law — with one important exception.
That exception brought us Brett Kavanaugh, winner of Trump’s Supreme Court sweepstakes, and an advocate of executive immunity from precisely the kind of investigations and lawsuits that now threaten this president.
Naturally, Kavanaugh displays all the right (and far-right) credentials, including a Yale law degree, a career dedication to the Federalist Society, and a lifetime of activism in the Republican Party, as well as a current position on the prestigious Second Circuit Court of Appeals. As Democratic senators warn, he can be expected to vote consistently to please his party’s major donors on everything from health care to voting rights. He probably hasn’t changed his mind on any public issue since college.
But Trump chose him over all the cookie-cutter conservatives because of the single occasion when Kavanaugh radically shifted position. In a 2009 law review article, he argued that the president, unlike any other citizen, should remain immune from criminal investigation or civil litigation while in office.
He urged Congress to pass legislation enacting such an exemption because the burdens of the presidency are too overwhelming to permit any such distractions before his term expires. That doesn’t mean a president is above the law, he hastened to add, only that any criminal prosecution or civil lawsuit be held in abeyance.
Read the full article in AlterNet
