No amount of dismissing and re-dismissing of ethics complaints has deterred progressive groups from demanding that House Democrats investigate the “sham confirmation process” that ended with Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court of the United States.
In a letter to House Judiciary and House Oversight Democrats, more than 20 progressive activist groups are saying that the “many issues” that went “unresolved” must be “investigated.”
“Serious questions remain about whether Justice Kavanaugh lied to the Senate; whether he sexually assaulted the women who credibly accused him of doing so; whether there are cases on which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned and from which he must be recused; whether he lied about his financial debt and how it was repaid; and whether he is ultimately fit to be a justice on the Supreme Court,” they said.
They then referred to the dozens of ethics complaints against Kavanaugh, which were dismissed twice because the Judicial Council didn’t have the power to do anything about them.
“A full 83 ethics complaints were filed against Justice Kavanaugh last year, and the Judicial Council called many of the allegations ‘serious,’ but was unable to investigate them because Supreme Court justices are not subject to the ethics rules,” the letter continued. “Instead, the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability of the Judicial Conference of the United States has forwarded the complaints to Congress. It is now you, and only you, who can bring transparency and accountability to this process.”
Senate Republicans were accused of “manipulating” the confirmation process and “completely excluding the records from his most senior and significant position, Staff Secretary to the President, and thereby shielding nearly 75% of the 3.85 million pages of relevant records from disclosure.”
“The public must be given an opportunity to review the full records from his tenure in the George W. Bush administration to determine when Justice Kavanaugh’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” they argued. “We therefore urge you to request and thoroughly review Justice Kavanaugh’s complete record, including from his tenure in the Office of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, in the White House Counsel’s Office, and as Staff Secretary to George W. Bush, to determine whether, when, and about what he committed perjury and to assess whether there are issues and cases from which he should be recused.”
Finally, the groups accused Kavanaugh of committing perjury during a hearing in which he responded to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford‘s allegation of sexual assault.
“Given the questions about his truthfulness in prior testimony, these additional instances of potential perjury demand further examination. Even more importantly, given the seriousness of sexual assault, the allegations made against him and his responses to them deserve your Committees’ thorough investigation,” they said, also calling the FBI investigation into the allegations a “sham.”
[Image via ANDREW HARNIK/AFP/Getty Images]
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