The American Bar Association called late Thursday night for Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation to be put on hold while the FBI conducts a “thorough” investigation of the sexual assault allegations against him. “Deciding to proceed without conducting additional investigation would not only have a lasting impact on the Senate's reputation,” warned ABA president Robert Carlson, “but it will also negatively affect the great trust necessary for the American people to have in the Supreme Court.”
What this means is that now we’re going to see Republicans waving off the ABA’s worth the very next day after they repeatedly bragged about its importance in validating his character and qualifications for the Supreme Court during Thursday’s hearing. “Here's my understanding, if you lived a good life, people will recognize it like the American Bar Association has, the gold standard,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) during his ragey Jimmy Stewart impersonation. “His integrity is absolutely unquestioned.”
Kavanaugh himself pointed to his ABA support:
"For 12 years, everyone who has appeared before me on the D.C. Circuit has praised my judicial temperament," Kavanaugh said Thursday. "That's why I have the unanimous, well-qualified rating from the American Bar Association."
While one wonders if his volatile, angry, entitled performance on Thursday gave the ABA reason to rethink its rating, the call for delay was made simply on the grounds that there is more to investigate. Consider the ABA firmly on the side of Senate Democrats in thinking that an FBI investigation might add something to the information senators have in assessing the sexual assault allegations, despite Kavanaugh’s repeated insistence that, as a federal judge, he thinks FBI investigations are worthless.
The ABA wasn’t the only Kavanaugh supporter to change its position in the wake of Thursday’s hearing, either. America magazine, a publication of the Jesuits, didn’t bother to call for delay or an investigation—it called for Kavanaugh’s nomination to be withdrawn entirely, because:
“If Senate Republicans proceed with his nomination, they will be prioritizing policy aims over a woman’s report of an assault,” the editors wrote. “Were he to be confirmed without this allegation being firmly disproved, it would hang over his future decisions on the Supreme Court for decades and further divide the country.”
Georgetown Prep, where Kavanaugh attended high school, is a Jesuit school and Kavanaugh repeatedly cited his faith to show that he wouldn’t have committed sexual assault (he apparently doesn’t pay much attention to news about the Catholic Church). But again, neither Kavanaugh nor Senate Republicans is likely to care about the loss of support. Support from institutions like the American Bar Association or the Jesuits is nice if they have it and can wield it as a cudgel, but these are partisans above all—Kavanaugh included—and they’ll push forward no matter.
We need a Senate that believes women. Please give $3 each to elect Jacky Rosen in Nevada and Beto O'Rourke in Texas.
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