She wouldn't, would she?

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Hillary Behind Kavanaugh Obstruction

It is being confirmed that Hillary has tried to pull a gigantic behind-the-scenes deception into the blocked nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Nine days ago Hillary's camp denied it was the anonymous Senator blocking his appointment. But now it has been revealed she pulled the strings of the Senator who did block Kavanaugh. From John Fund's Political Diary:

 

Senate Democrats are threatening to delay the confirmation vote for Samuel Alito as long as possible, though they are unlikely to be able to sustain a veto in the highly visible Supreme Court contest. For lower-level judicial nominations, however, Democrats are less bashful about resorting to extreme shenanigans to block appointees. With one nominee, Bush White House aide Brett Kavanaugh, who has been named to the Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington D.C., the petty tactics are being orchestrated behind the scenes by none other than Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

 

When the Bush White House asked that all judicial nominees who had not been acted upon in the 2005 session of Congress be carried over to the 2006 calendar, a normally routine procedure, Mr. Kavanaugh was not included thanks to objections raised by a single anonymous Senator. His nomination thus lapsed and will have to be resubmitted, a tedious procedure that will further delay its consideration.

 

Quin Hillyer of the Mobile Register reports that both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have told him that "the objection, and a long-running 'hold' on the Kavanaugh nomination, were effected by another Democratic senator at the direct request of Sen. Clinton -- who apparently wants to be able to deny formal culpability for the parliamentary maneuvers."

 

Her motivation is clear. Back in 1998 and 1999, Mr. Kavanaugh was an aide to Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, whose investigation of the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky scandals led directly to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Senator Clinton has frequently allowed grudges from that era to affect her behavior. When Viet Dinh and Michael Chertoff (now the Secretary of Homeland Security) were confirmed for top jobs in the Bush Justice Department in 2001, the vote was unanimous -- save for Senator Clinton, who voted no. Both men had been active in the investigations of her husband.

 

The irony is that Mr. Kavanaugh, like Messrs. Dinh and Chertoff, is no blind Clinton-hater. The Washington Post's Bob Woodward reported in his book on the Clinton impeachment that Mr. Kavanaugh used his junior position on Ken Starr's team to urge him not to load up his report on the Lewinsky scandal with sexual detail. He also helped draft the report that shot down the most feverish conspiracy theories surrounding the suicide of White House deputy Vincent Foster.

 

Mr. Kavanaugh, who has clerked for two top appeals court judges as well as Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, is thus being blocked from fair consideration for no other reason than Senatorial pique. Given Mrs. Clinton's fervent desire to adjust her image in a more "moderate" direction, let's hope her extreme tactics against Mr. Kavanaugh merit some attention from the media as it turns its focus on judicial politics this week.

 

From the NY Sun on Dec 30:

 

A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, Philippe Reines, dismissed the suggestion that the New York Democrat objected to Mr. Kavanaugh’s nomination. Asked in an e-mail yesterday whether Mrs. Clinton had anything at all to do with the nomination being sent back to the White House, Mr. Reines replied simply: “No.”

 

Here is the Mobile Register story on Jan. 7 that Fund mentioned above, plus additional commentary:

 

Meanwhile, Sen. Clinton's tendency toward vindictiveness has gone unremarked upon by the East Coast media. For instance, when now-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was approved for a federal judgeship several years back, Sen. Clinton was the only senator to vote against him. She apparently was still angry at Mr. Chertoff's role as lead counsel of an earlier investigation into various Clinton scandals -- even though that investigation as a whole, and Mr. Chertoff in particular, earned bipartisan praise for not going overboard.

 

Now Sen. Clinton is pulling an even stronger stunt against Mr. Kavanaugh -- but the big media have responded with a big yawn. Yet back in 1997 when conservative Sen. Jesse Helms pulled a similar stunt against GOP Gov. William Weld of Massachusetts, who was nominated to an ambassadorship, the media went wild for weeks.

 

Nominations to the second highest court in the land deserve close attention and great respect. Sen. Clinton instead has disrespected Mr. Kavanaugh and the entire process, while denying him any formal consideration -- but the big media haven't called her on the carpet for it.