Why did Trump choose Brett Kavanaugh for SCOTUS?

[Brian4Liberty]

Many people remember lists from the The Heritage Foundation and The Federalist Society playing a role in the ill-advised selection of Kavanaugh for the SCOTUS. In addition, Don McGahn played a key role, and Justice Kennedy probably also wielded undue influence.

Federalist Society - Leonard Leo

When President Donald Trump nominates a justice to the Supreme Court on Monday night, he will be carrying out the agenda of a small, secretive network of extremely conservative Catholic activists already responsible for placing three justices (Alito, Roberts, and Gorsuch) on the high court.

And yet few people know who they are—until now.

At the center of the network is Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, the association of legal professionals that has been the pipeline for nearly all of Trump’s judicial nominees. (Leo is on leave from the Federalist Society to personally assist Trump in picking a replacement for Justice Anthony Kennedy.) His formal title is executive vice president, but that role belies Leo’s influence.
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-se...eme-court-pick

Heritage Foundation - John Malcolm

When President Donald Trump announced on July 9 the selection of his nominee for a vacancy on the Supreme Court, he chose a jurist who was on a list of eight constitutionalist judges that a Heritage Foundation scholar compiled more than two years earlier.

Trump tapped Judge Brett Kavanaugh—who has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit since 2006—to replace Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy announced his retirement at the end of the court’s 2017-2018 term in late June.

Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Kavanaugh’s confirmation begin Sept. 4.

In early March 2016, following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, Heritage’s John Malcolm published a list of potential Supreme Court justices in a Daily Signal article, “The Next Supreme Court Justice.” The non-exclusive list contained eight names, including Kavanaugh’s.

After releasing an initial list of 11 names in May 2016, Trump later added to his list to include Kavanaugh. Trump gave credit to The Federalist Society and The Heritage Foundation for helping to inform his thinking in compiling his own list.
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https://www.heritage.org/impact/supr...ndation-helped

The Next Supreme Court Justice
John G. Malcolm / @malcolm_john / March 30, 2016
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Brett Kavanaugh (Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit)

A former clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy, Kavanaugh worked as a senior associate counsel and assistant to President George W. Bush and as an associate independent counsel. He was nominated to the D.C. Circuit in 2003 but not confirmed until 2006. Former Attorney General William Barr stated that Kavanaugh “quickly established himself as one of the key outside lawyers I went to on some of my toughest legal issues. He has a keen intellect, exceptional analytical skills, and sound judgment. His writing is fluid and precise. I found that he was able to see all sides of an issue and appreciate the strengths and weakness of competing approaches. He was particularly effective in dealing with novel issues which required some original thinking.” Since joining the bench, Kavanaugh has distinguished himself as a thoughtful, apolitical jurist, who is not afraid to stake out bold positions on complex issues.
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https://www.dailysignal.com/2016/03/...court-justice/

Don McGahn

The Man Behind the Brett Kavanaugh Strategy: Don McGahn
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From the first, the White House has described the Kavanaugh nomination as a campaign with Mr. McGahn in the role of day-to-day manager and chairman.

Mr. McGahn comes out of conservative legal circles and had admired Judge Kavanaugh’s writings on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, a person familiar with the matter said.

Speaking last fall to the Federalist Society—a lawyers’ network that grooms conservative judges and others—Mr. McGahn rattled off names of potential Supreme Court nominees. His mention of Judge Kavanaugh sparked zealous applause. “He’s winning on the applause meter,” he quipped.

Mr. McGahn was sold on Judge Kavanaugh’s performance on the bench even more so than Mr. Trump, people close to the White House said. The day after he offered Judge Kavanaugh the nomination, Mr. Trump was still phoning associates and asking whether he had made the right choice, a person close to the White House said.

Despite pressure by Washington’s conservative legal establishment to choose one of its own, the president appeared “reluctant to pull the trigger” on nominating Judge Kavanaugh, said a person close to the process. To Mr. Trump, Judge Kavanaugh, who had worked in the George W. Bush White House, may have appeared as “just a Bush guy”—a creature of the Republican dynasty Mr. Trump often disparages, this person said.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-man...ahn-1538594487

Justice Kennedy asked Trump to put Kavanaugh on Supreme Court list, book says
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Kennedy requested a private moment with President Trump to deliver a message about the next Supreme Court opening, Marcus reports. Kennedy told Trump he should consider another of his former clerks, Brett M. Kavanaugh, who was not on the president’s first two lists of candidates.

“The justice’s message to the president was as consequential as it was straightforward, and it was a remarkable insertion by a sitting justice into the distinctly presidential act of judge picking,” Marcus writes in “Supreme Ambition: Brett Kavanaugh and the Conservative Takeover.”

Kennedy announced his retirement 14 months later, after Kavanaugh’s name indeed had been added to Trump’s public list of potential Supreme Court picks.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...d00_story.html

[Swordsmyth]

He picked him because Kennedy would not have retired if he didn't get to choose his replacement.
He is an improvement over Kennedy.
He also had to be approved by McConnell to get through the Senate.

[unknown]

Because hes clueless?

Napolitano.

[TheTexan]

He should have picked me for SCOTUS.

I am very qualified.

[familydog]

Remember when 99% of the right went to bat for him? Remember when they made thug life memes of Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell?

Federalist Society recommendations aren't qualified to be dog catcher, let alone a judge.

[TheTexan]

Remember when 99% of the right went to bat for him? Remember when they made thug life memes of Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell?

Federalist Society recommendations aren't qualified to be dog catcher, let alone a judge.

Hopefully its clear by now that it doesnt matter what clowns are appointed to SCROTUS, as the institution has long usurped its own authority

[TheCount]

Because he got a phone call from a television personality telling him that he should

[TheTexan]

Because he got a phone call from a television personality telling him that he should

People on TV are very knowledgeable about politics, I hear them say so all the time

[RJB]

I felt bad about him facing those BS charges, but I knew that he'd be a POS after he started crying in front of the commitee.

[tod evans]

I felt bad about him facing those BS charges, but I knew that he'd be a POS after he started crying in front of the commitee.

But, but, feeeeeeeeeelings.

[Anti Globalist]

I think it's time in general that we stop putting lawyers on the SCOTUS. The Constitution was written in plain English so that anybody can easily be able to interpret it. By putting lawyers on the SCOTUS you are ensuring they will twist words and take things out of context. The GOP needs to stop nominating people the Federalist Society recommends. People who have spent a lifetime trying to gain favor of the ruling class does not belong on the Court.

[Brian4Liberty]

Opus Dei’s Influence on the U.S. Judiciary

“Leonard Leo can take credit for installing four Supreme Court justices” – John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. “As executive vice president of the Federalist Society, Leo has been the quiet architect of a pivotal shift to the right throughout the federal judiciary” including “dozens of lower court federal judges across the country.”

It was Leo who prepared Trump’s “list of judges and the people that he’s put on the bench.”

Leo is on the board of directors of Opus Dei’s Catholic Information Center located at 15th and K Street, two blocks from the White House. The Center is “a rallying point for ultra-conservative Catholics eager for a voice in the secular halls of government power” and “advances a hard-right political agenda,” according to Church and State, Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s magazine.
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In 1982, Pope John Paul II designated the group as a “personal prelature,” that is, they are under the sole jurisdiction of the pope and no other prelate.
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“Opus Dei pursues the Vatican’s agenda through the presence of its members in secular governments and institutions and through a vast array of academic, medical, and grassroots pursuits. Its constant effort [is] to increase its presence in civil institutions of power. [T]heir work in the public sphere breaches the church-state division that is fundamental to modern democracy,”
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When John Roberts was nominated for the Court, Opus Dei’s Austin Ruse said his fellow conservative Catholics could “breathe easy” and Leonard Leo “also assured conservative Catholics that Roberts will not follow the same path as Anthony Kennedy.”
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“Leo, perhaps the most integral private individual in the selection of Kavanaugh” was present at the White House ceremony when Trump announced Kavanaugh’s nomination. Kavanaugh’s legal thinking is “shaped by Scalia.”
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More: http://churchandstate.org.uk/2019/03...u-s-judiciary/

[Invisible Man]

If Trump hadn't kowtowed to those influences in his SCOTUS nominations and instead followed his own instincts, his nominations would have been indistinguishable from any Democrat president's.

[A Son of Liberty]

If Trump hadn't kowtowed to those influences in his SCOTUS nominations and instead followed his own instincts, his nominations would have been indistinguishable from any Democrat president's.

Initiating RandomTrumpDefenseGenerator....................... ............................... But McConnell wouldn't have pushed through a real conservative judge

[acptulsa]

Initiating RandomTrumpDefenseGenerator....................... ...............................

[Brian4Liberty]

If Trump hadn't kowtowed to those influences in his SCOTUS nominations and instead followed his own instincts, his nominations would have been indistinguishable from any Democrat president's.

You never know. Without the less known recommendations, Trump would probably go with a better known person (celebrity). Perhaps Judge Napolitano, Jeanine Pirro, or Mike Lee?

[Invisible Man]

You never know. Without the less known recommendations, Trump would probably go with a better known person (celebrity). Perhaps Judge Napolitano, Jeanine Pirro, or Mike Lee?

If he had gone that route, it would have led more in the direction of Judge Judy or Judge Reinhold.

[TheCount]

You never know. Without the less known recommendations, Trump would probably go with a better known person (celebrity). Perhaps Judge Napolitano, Jeanine Pirro, or Mike Lee?

Napolitano committed the unforgivable sin of not constantly agreeing with Trump. He had no chance.

[Invisible Man]

Napolitano committed the unforgivable sin of not constantly agreeing with Trump. He had no chance.

I don't think he would have had a chance anyway. The Republican establishment would have shot him down. He would have had hardly any supporters at all in the Senate. Possibly Rand and no others. Possibly not even Rand. And if he did get to hearings, he would have gotten skewered and both he and Trump made fools of.

[TheCount]

I don't think he would have had a chance anyway.

Likely not. I don't think that any politician is tripping over themselves to appoint people who will adhere to principle.

They want people who are more.... reliable.

[osan]

He should have picked me for SCOTUS.

I am very qualified.

Actually, your snark aside, I believe that you are. Beside Gorsuch and Thomas, especially the latter, the justices are mostly chud.

As to why Trump chose Kavanaugh, short of him telling us so with candor that could be trusted, there's no real way to know.

While I trust Trump marginally above the rest of the DC sludge, I still don't trust him. That said, what is Trump to do? Seriously now - how would he know whom to choose? He's an adept businessman and negotiator. He was even a pretty good president, as those beasts go, but he's not a lawyer, nor much of a politician. I'm confident in my opinion that Trump would know a good candidate from bad much beyond filtering by party affiliation, all 'D's immediately scratched from consideration, and for proper cause.

Beyond that, by what means would Trump be able to capably judge the relative merits of the candidates? How would he even know whom to put on a list of same?

Advisors and muck rakers, that's how. Given how things have worked out, especially the cases of the treacherous Roberts and the vast disappointment Barrett, can anyone wonder that everyone whispering in his ears were, in fact, muck raking nitwits at best?

I'd say there are far better things over which to wring one's hands than these questions, unless the point is to dope out the broader question of how justices are chosen in all cases. We all know the process is lousy with political corruption, which makes all choices suspect on their faces. Is there anything else that would be as important to know?

I'd be interested in knowing whose opinions about such choices would be sound. Do such sources even exist, or are we that screwed? I suspect the latter.

[Brian4Liberty]

Actually, your snark aside, I believe that you are. Beside Gorsuch and Thomas, especially the latter, the justices are mostly chud.

Considering the involvement of Opus Dei via Leonard Leo of The Federalist Society, it is interesting that Gorsuch left the Catholic Church, and does not seem to be following the same agenda as Roberts and Kavanaugh.

As to why Trump chose Kavanaugh, short of him telling us so with candor that could be trusted, there's no real way to know.

While I trust Trump marginally above the rest of the DC sludge, I still don't trust him. That said, what is Trump to do? Seriously now - how would he know whom to choose?
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Beyond that, by what means would Trump be able to capably judge the relative merits of the candidates? How would he even know whom to put on a list of same?

Advisors and muck rakers, that's how. Given how things have worked out, especially the cases of the treacherous Roberts and the vast disappointment Barrett, can anyone wonder that everyone whispering in his ears were, in fact, muck raking nitwits at best?
...

It would be a very difficult task to know who to pick. Trump probably did as well as he could with the advisers he had.

Remember when Hillary Clinton said that when she needs foreign policy, she said something to the effect that she will go to the Counsel on Foreign Relations?

Likewise, it has been a GOP matter of faith to defer to The Federalist Society on Supreme Court Justices. It is fair to say at this point, with so many failures, that they can not be trusted. Additionally, it should be known that they have an agenda that goes beyond the US Constitution.

[TheTexan]

Barrett makes pretty good rifles

[osan]

You know who should be the next SCOTUS justice?

Me.

No, I'm not joking. I understand liberty and proper human relations, which is more important than the arcane idiocies in which the sitting justices marinate.

My suspicion is that just as with so many other disciplines, jurisprudence becomes an echo-chamber of sorts and the people who spend their lives inside lose sight of some very basic truths, not seeing the forest for the trees. Their jargon becomes second nature and their thinking follows suit. As ideas creep away from basic sanity piecemeal, not necessarily the result of maleficence or gross ineptitude, those in the chamber don't even notice how their basic world views alter. Furthermore, even if they do, the tendency is to believe that they are going in the right direction - that they are coming into possession of special and superior knowledge; that they are becoming better than the rest. People do this all the time and it is often the source of disastrous result.

None of this can be proven, nor does it really matter. What does matter is that we can observe first-hand their error in abandoning principle as the ONLY relevant factor in their deliberations. Some, including the justices in question, would say my view is simplistic, that the real world is more complicated such that my simple views are insufficient as solutions for many real-world problems. To that I politely say BULL$#@!. Their problem, as well as that of a vast plurality of humanity, is that they play the
"it's complicated" copout card to justify their perversions of what should be Law when they don't like the results of actual liberty.

Liberty often leads to some very nasty outcomes. That is part of liberty's costs. They can be minimized, but they cannot be eliminated, in my estimation. The justices, at best, suffer from the same problem as card-carrying, proud-marching communists and other similar vermin: they reject the costs of liberty, the ugly side of that coin, and so contrive to cut it away, yet keep all the benefits they seek to enjoy. So sorry $#@!s, but things do not work that way. TANSTAAFL, and anyone who says otherwise is either a blithering fool, or a peddler of evils. The political world works as a direct and very close analog to energy systems because in all practical effect, it is an energy system whose rules are written not by men, but by the same who authored those of thermodynamics. Call it God, call it Kitchen Sink, the name is irrelevant. What counts is to know the rules and to operate in accord with them. To do otherwise is sub-optimal and can only lead to lesser outcomes, which is the very essence of the philosophy of far too many people, regardless of the political labels to which they attach themselves.

The rules are few, simple, and non-negotiable. We violate them at our peril. The dismal history of the twentieth century should be sufficient testament to convince people of this truth, doing the same things over and over, expecting different results.

Until we decide to grow up and take the steps necessary to be as adults, nothing good is going to come of anything we do, politically speaking. Childishness and our tantrum-infused refusal to learn from our errors isn't going to end well for us, as those with eyes to see can see even now.

[Anti Globalist]

Can't wait to see who Biden ends up nominating for SCOTUS. Wonder when we'll see that happen. He won't go his whole presidency without getting at least one. Breyer is currently the oldest on the Court at 83. He'll most likely die or retire before the Midterms. Democrats will make sure the GOP won't fill his seat.

[Brian4Liberty]

He picked him because Kennedy would not have retired if he didn't get to choose his replacement.
He is an improvement over Kennedy.
He also had to be approved by McConnell to get through the Senate.

Yeah, how's that working out?

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court sided with the Defense Department on Friday afternoon, blocking a lower court ruling that would force the military to deploy unvaccinated Navy SEALs fighting a Covid-19 vaccine mandate.

There was no majority opinion on the ruling but Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissented.
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More: https://www.courthousenews.com/supre...cinated-seals/

[Brian4Liberty]

Can't wait to see who Biden ends up nominating for SCOTUS. Wonder when we'll see that happen. He won't go his whole presidency without getting at least one. Breyer is currently the oldest on the Court at 83. He'll most likely die or retire before the Midterms. Democrats will make sure the GOP won't fill his seat.

You know now.

[Swordsmyth]

Yeah, how's that working out?

No worse than Kennedy would have done and sometimes better.

[unknown]

Because he was told to?

[Brian4Liberty]

No worse than Kennedy would have done and sometimes better.

Settling for a slightly better leftist, while the left puts radical leftists on the court. Winning.