(Washington D.C., Tuesday, July 10, 2018)

Armed with fill-in-the-blank protest signs ready to decry and defame any nominee regardless of President Donald Trump’s choice for the Supreme Court, angry leftist backlash was expected, if not guaranteed in response to a pivotal high court appointment that could swing the Supreme Court farther right than at any time in modern history. All that hung in the balance was whether Trump’s second SCOTUS pick would satisfy populists, libertarians and conservatives among the President’s most energized base. Within mere moments of announcing Federal Appellate Court Judge, Brett Kavanaugh as his selection, the definitive answer to that question was, ‘no.’

Critics handicapping the selection process had already red-flagged Kavanaugh’s candidacy, citing concerns over his ties to the Bush family, his penchant for broad interpretation of the powers of the executive branch and his numerous affiliations with neo-Conservative establishment Republicans who served as mere window dressing of controlled support during the Clinton era.

Social media immediately carried news of America’s most staunch conservative lawmakers and their reservations about the pick. Kentucky Senator and libertarian stalwart, Rand Paul tweeted that he would do his best to “keep and open mind,” while Michigan Congressman Justin Amash, who had earlier expressed abject horror at the prospect of a Kavanaugh selection, reinforced his misgivings, calling the pick, “disappointing,” and reiterating his specific concerns about Kavanaugh’s judicial leniency toward government surveillance and an implied destruction of the 4th Amendment.

Amash elaborated Tuesday, citing specific appellate court opinions written by Kavanaugh in 2015 in which the SUPCO hopeful indicated his belief that widespread government surveillance and use of invasive dragnet information gathering and metadata caching techniques by government agencies were, “entirely consistent with the 4th Amendment.” The 4th Amendment specifically forbids violation of personal property rights through involuntary government search and seizure without probable cause and due process by court order.

Equally or more troubling for those with long memory or facility for research is Kavanaugh’s connection as a young attorney in the early 1990’s to the exoneration of Bill and Hillary Clinton in the death of Clinton attorney, Vince Foster, which still reigns as one of the strangest and most inexplicable circumstances of suicide in political lore.  Kavanaugh, working closely with the Kenneth Starr investigation of the Clinton White House ruled Foster’s death a suicide, despite troubling gaps in timeline and evidence that lead some to conclude that Kavanaugh and Starr were complicit in a coverup of the actual circumstances of Foster’s death. 

Kavanaugh’s closeness with the retiring Anthony Kennedy, the man whose retirement opened the door for Kavanaugh’s appointment sparked rumors Tuesday that Justice Kennedy might have cut a deal with President Trump regarding the timing of his retirement and his own desires to see Kavanaugh, his former law clerk, succeed him on the nation’s most powerful bench. Trump quickly denied those claims.

Despite conservative backlash, Democrats were quick to pounce on Kavanaugh as Trump’s appointment, promising a fight to the finish and a unified resistance to Kavanaugh’s confirmation. New York Senator Chuck Schumer immediately told every media outlet within earshot that he is personally committed to devising a plan to block Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

“The ramifications of this battle will last a generation or more. I’m going to fight this nomination with everything I’ve got,” Schumer said.

Brett Kavanaugh’s bio here.