Written by Benjamin Wittes, who writes for Lawfare blog. He scrutinizes what Kavanaugh had stated at Minnesota. Law symposium 10 years ago. Erry.
Fyi ,-Wittes is one of those DC insiders, and would use ‘BOOM’ when some Mueller investigation related story would come up, that was hugely consequential. His twitter id @benjaminwittes
I think I am on safe ground in saying that when Brett Kavanaugh and I presented our papers at the Minnesota Law Review symposium in October 2008—his on separation of powers and mine on (of all things) judicial nominations—neither of us imagined that 10 years later, four pages of his text would be cited as proof that he is unfit for confirmation to the Supreme Court. Yet in the context of the Mueller investigation and the Trump presidency, a segment of Kavanaugh’s speech—the whole of which he later published as an article—has become an exhibit in the early case for the grave danger that he poses to our republic.
The Washington Post reports that:
U.S. Circuit Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy who was nominated replace him, has argued that presidents should not be distracted by civil lawsuits, criminal investigations or even questions from a prosecutor or defense attorney while in office.
Kavanaugh had direct personal experience that informed his 2009 article for the Minnesota Law Review: He helped investigate President Bill Clinton as part of independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s team and then served for five years as a close aide to President George W. Bush.
Having observed the weighty issues that can consume a president, Kavanaugh wrote, the nation’s chief executive should be exempt from “time-consuming and distracting” lawsuits and investigations, which “would ill serve the public interest, especially in times of financial or national security crisis.”
If a president were truly malevolent, Kavanaugh wrote, he could always be impeached.
Kavanaugh’s position that presidents should be free of such legal inquiries until after they leave office puts him on the record regarding a topic of intense interest to Trump — and could be a central focus of his confirmation hearing to succeed Kennedy, legal experts said.
