Quote:Prominent Democrats have slammed Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh for supporting an end to the independent counsel statute, even though they themselves backed precisely the same proposal decades ago.
Kavanaugh has drawn criticism for a 2016 video in which he said he would "put the final nail" in a 1988 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the creation of an independent counsel, responsible for investigating wrongdoing by the executive branch and therefore independent of it (unlike, for example, the Attorney General). It was under the auspices of this office that Ken Starr investigated then-President Bill Clinton's wrongdoing in the Whitewater affair—a project on which Kavanaugh, then a young lawyer, worked.
Quote:The question of investigating wrongdoing by the president has taken on new significance, given the inquiry led by Robert Mueller into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Importantly, special counsel Mueller was not appointed under the independent counsel statute, which lapsed in 1999. He was rather appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and acts therefore under the auspices of the Department of Justice: a component of the executive branch.
This fact hasn't stopped Democrats from tying Kavanaugh's criticism to Mueller's investigation, darkly suggesting that his opposition to the unrelated statute makes him unfit to rule on any matters pertaining to the investigation.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), in a Thursday floor speech, said that the comments were "deeply troubling" and called on Kavanaugh to recuse himself from any matters involving the Mueller probe before the Supreme Court. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) told CNN that his opinions on executive power ought to be "a key part of the questioning of Brett Kavanaugh."
Quote:The Associated Press reported in 2003 that Schumer had previously backed ending the independent counsel statute, saying that year that his support for better investigation of the leaks from the Bush administration's CIA did not change his opinion on the matter.
Durbin, meanwhile, explicitly endorsed allowing the independent counsel statute to lapse in 1999. The Herald News reported in 1998 that Durbin explicitly said he would not vote to reauthorize the statute, according to an extract of an article seen by the Free Beacon.
He called for getting rid of the statute in 1999, and favored returning the independent counsel's discretion to the Executive. In a hearing before the Senate Committee on Government Affairs that year, Durbin said that he had made a mistake in voting to reauthorize the office in 1994, and pushed to do away with it.
"Our form of government is grounded on the premise that unchecked power is tyranny. The independent counsel is unchecked, unbridled, unrestrained, and unaccountable," he said at the time, an opinion strongly reminiscent of Scalia's own stance in his Morrison dissent.
RE: Senate dims blast Kavanaugh for stance they have themselves professed
(07-22-2018 04:14 PM)BadgerMJ Wrote:
(07-22-2018 02:56 PM)CrimsonPhantom Wrote: Dems are so dimwitted, they don't remember what they support anymore.
The only thing they know is that if something/someone Trump related is FOR it, they MUST be against it..... Even if they were for it in the past.
which is why calling it a 2 party system is 'obsolete' at this point.....
it's now only the have's and those that want to have w/o putting forth the effort.....
which is why pops told me 50 fk'n yrs ago why one should only vote red......
very smart man he still is to this day............I listen when it matters.....however, I find it more important to listen more to those that don't matter...
(This post was last modified: 07-22-2018 04:25 PM by stinkfist.)
RE: Senate dims blast Kavanaugh for stance they have themselves professed
When Kav (we're like bros) comes up before the Senate to be confirmed Kav should bring up these two guysters, short for shysters, with this information to shove it to their faces their hypocrisy. Now, that the foot is on the other shoe, they want Kav to recuse himself. This alone tells me that they have no goods on Kav and he will be okayed even it has to go through the Republicans.
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Senate dims blast Kavanaugh for stance they have themselves professed
they want Kav to recuse himself. This alone tells me that they have no goods on Kav and he will be okayed even it has to go through the Republicans.