Senate Judiciary Committee (photo by David Lat)
If anything derails the Brett Kavanaugh nomination at this point, it won’t be Chuck Grassley’s office. The Senate Judiciary Committee chair who originally wanted to dispense with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations with a closed phone call, suffered an unfortunate leak today when his right-hand man in this process decided to Tweet out that, well…
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That’s Michael Davis, the committee’s chief counsel for nominations explaining that he’s hellbent on confirming Brett Kavanaugh regardless of any evidence of sexual assault. On the one hand, that’s not a great look for the integrity of the process, which is probably why Davis locked his account to hide the Tweets. On the other hand, the GOP held up Merrick Garland for a year based on… nothing actually, which is probably why he later unlocked his account and threw a laughable fig leaf on his original Tweet. There’s not really much to be lost in admitting you’re not interested in doing a thorough and honest job. The dark cynicism has already taken over the process like wasting disease.
Davis has already put himself on record saying he doesn’t appreciate people asking the nominees if they support segregation, so it isn’t surprising to learn he’s uninterested in putting forth even the most disingenuous air of even-handedness for the sake of his superiors. While Davis has a long career in Republican politics, having handled nominations during the W. Bush administration and clerking for Gorsuch on both the Tenth and the Supreme Court, he seems to have uniquely bucked the “establishment” mentality and wholly embraced the “yeah, and what are you gonna do about it?” worldview of the modern GOP.
While he was clerking for Gorsuch, he gave an interview that made him sound like, as I put it at the time, a “f**king dickbag.” His recent misadventures on social media have done nothing to alter that initial impression.
Earlier: Law Clerk Explains To Reporter That He Really Is Kind Of A Jerk
Asking About Brown v. Board Is ‘Gutter Politics,’ According To Senate Judiciary Official
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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.