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Brett Kavanaugh Perjured Himself. He Should Be Impeached From The D.C. Circuit Soon.

Are Republicans really going to confirm a judge who will need to be impeached?

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(MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Take ideology out of it for a second. Yes, documents heroically released today by Senator Cory Booker show Brett Kavanaugh’s antipathy towards minorities and willingness to entertain Korematsu-style racial profiling. Yes, documents obtained by the AP show Kavanaugh’s willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Those views are problematic, but typical of modern American conservatives.

What’s atypical, or at least we’re told it’s atypical, is for American conservatives to suborn perjury. But that’s what they’re doing by supporting Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. During today’s confirmation hearings, Brett Kavanaugh was shown to have perjured himself before Congress in 2006.

In 2006, Kavanaugh told Ted Kennedy that he was “not involved” in Bill Pryor’s nomination to the Eleventh Circuit. In fact, he was involved. In documents made public during Senator Pat Leahy’s questioning, Kavanaugh is shown to have recommended Pryor, and invited to actively discuss Pyror’s hearings.

In a world where the President of the United States will lie about what time it is while standing in front of a clock, this may seem like de minimis lying. We’ve become so accustomed to people lying and then still being put in positions of public trust that we tend to forget that truthfulness should be a minimum requirement for office.

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But there’s more. Kavanaugh had a good, albeit nefarious, reason to lie to Ted Kennedy. His involvement in those hearings was aided by documents stolen from Senator Leahy and other senators on the Judiciary Committee. Documents released today show that Kavanaugh was on emails which had, and I’m not making this up, “SPYING” in the actual subject head:

When pressed by Senator Leahy, Kavanaugh said that he didn’t know he was working with stolen information (for hearings he lied about working on). Leahy said, “I was born at night, but not last night.” Leahy said that he couldn’t believe that Kavanaugh was in possession of stolen information, and used, and testified differently.

This. Is. Perjury.

That should be game over. As much as I disagree with the ideology of conservatives, I refuse to believe that they can’t find one who believes what they believe and yet doesn’t lie before Congress.

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Sadly, it probably won’t be enough to shake even two Republicans from their appointed task of destroying the integrity of institutions they now control. It would be so simple for Republican senators to say, “This conservative lied to us. Please Dear Leader, nominate a different one so we can vote for him with honor.”

Remember, even Mitch McConnell didn’t want this particular nominee. He thought there were conservatives who would be easier to confirm. Kavanaugh was pushed by Jeff Sessions and Don McGahn, two people President Trump now hates. It would be simple for Republicans to take a stand here, and thereby generate a smidgen of credibility that they place integrity above ideology.

I’m not going to hold my breath.

Which brings us to impeachment. If Kavanaugh is confirmed, the Democrats will now have grounds to call for his impeachment every single day for the literal rest of his natural life. He perjured himself before Congress. We now have more on him than we had on Bill Clinton.

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution does not reserve impeachment for the president. It is a remedy that can be used against any federal officer. The procedure is the same, the House votes for impeachment, the Senate, by supermajority, votes to convict.

In our history, two presidents have been impeached, one senator, and… 15 judges. Eight of those judges have been convicted, though that hasn’t happened since 1805. While Kavanaugh and his ilk might want to bring us back to 1805, that’s not really the kind of precedent we should hang the integrity of the Supreme Court upon.

But, remember, I said impeachment applies to all federal officials. Kavanaugh is still very much a federal official — he’s a member of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Since Kavanaugh’s perjury occurred in 2006, Democrats in the House should move NOW to impeach Kavanaugh. Papers should be drawn up by tomorrow.

We should have a House vote on the impeachment of Kavanaugh from the D.C. Circuit before we have a Senate vote on his confirmation. Each House member running for reelection this fall should be asked to vote on whether a member of the Court of Appeals can lie to Congress and still have his job.

And we should be able to know the answer to that question before we ask senators to vote on his nomination. Potentially, they’ll need to conduct an impeachment trial on Kavanaugh before they can vote on his confirmation.

Is there enough strength left in the Republican party to hold judges accountable for perjury?

Or are they all just a bunch of anonymous cowards, willing to sacrifice the dignity of the institutions they serve for one more business deregulation or restriction of rights?

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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