On Saturday, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, issued a blistering response to Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT), who had apparently expressed an interest in the current supplemental FBI background investigation revolving around Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Grassley started by pointing out that on July 10, less than 24 hours after President Trump announced he was nominating Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, Sanders announced, “(w)e must mobilize the American people to defeat” Judge Kavanaugh.
Grassley then noted that members of the Senate had been given access to 307 judicial opinions Judge Kavanaugh wrote during his twelve years on the bench, over 500,000 pages of documents, over 40 hours of live testimony, and answers to more written questions than every prior Supreme Court nominee combined.
Grassley repeated, “Nevertheless, you made a decision on this nomination in less than 24 hours.”
Grassley blasted: “Your public statements clearly reveal how unimportant it is to you to review any facts related to this nomination. So you can imagine my surprise at receiving your letter regarding the supplemental FBI background investigation.”
Then Grassley asked the inevitable question, and he did it with relish: if Sanders had been so cocksure that Kavanaugh needed to be defeated, did the fact that he was interested in the new investigation mean he was considering changing his mind? Grassley wrote, “Am I to take from your letter that you are now undecided and willing to seriously engage with the Senate’s advice-and-consent constitutional duties related to the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to serve as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States? If so, we should have a conversation about what information you need to assist you in making your decision, and I look forward to that conversation. “
With sarcasm dripping from his pen, Grassley concluded, “I appreciate your raising concerns which others have already raised, at this eleventh hour.”