Washington – Appeals- court nominee Brett Kavanaugh told senators Tuesday he played no role as a White House aide in President Bush’s policies on detainees, and he promised to use precedent, not personal views or loyalties, in issuing judgments from the bench.
“I pledge to each member of the Senate that if confirmed I will interpret the law as written and not impose personal policy choices,” Kavanaugh told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
He noted that cases involving high government officials, including the president, often come before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the circuit where he would serve if confirmed.
“I will call them as I see them regardless of who the litigants may be … regardless of whether the president was involved,” he said.
For all the independence he pledged, Kavanaugh voiced the same opposition to judicial activism as Bush when discussing Supreme Court decisions.
Some of the court’s worst times have been “moments of judicial activism,” Kavanaugh said. He cited, among others, the 1857 Dred Scott decision, when the Supreme Court ruled that black men could be “treated as an ordinary article of merchandise.”
Kavanaugh appeared at a rare second confirmation hearing after Democrats criticized him as being unseasoned and a partisan. They questioned his role as White House staff secretary in White House policies that have arisen since his first hearing in 2004.
Kavanaugh’s résumé and a downgraded rating by the American Bar Association provided targets for his opponents. He was an assistant to independent counsel Kenneth Starr during the impeachment probe of President Clinton, and he worked on behalf of the Bush campaign during the election recount in 2000.
“Your experience has been most notable not so much for your blue-chip credentials but for the undeniable political nature of your assignments,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. “It feeds an impression of partisanship that is, to put it mildly, not ideal for a nominee to a critically important lifetime post.”
Republicans said Kavanaugh’s Ivy League education and prestigious clerkships make him a good candidate for the D.C. Circuit Court. Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said it should be no surprise that Bush’s nominees share Bush’s positions.
“If he reflects the views consistent with the president, that’s entirely consistent with the president’s nomination of judges,” Specter said. “That’s our system; that’s decided by an election.”
He asked whether Kavanaugh had been involved in several controversial White House policies, including treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and any torture techniques used on detainees overseas. He also was asked whether he knew convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He replied “no” to each.
Asked whether he knew or was involved in revealing the identity of former CIA agent Valerie Plame, Kavanaugh replied, “I do not know anything about the facts and circumstances of that matter.”
