Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) must have thought he had Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh over a barrel Wednesday when he began asking him about “stolen” memos. But in doing so, Leahy has reminded people that Democrats have long sought to impede Republican judicial nominees — sometimes for racist reasons.
Leahy tried to set a trap for Kavanaugh through his leading questions and claims of having evidence that contradicts the nominee’s testimony from a decade ago. Leahy brought up a forgotten incident known as “Memogate” from 2003, in which a GOP staffer noticed that Democrats on the Judiciary Committee hadn’t secured their server from Republicans. The staffer exploited this and turned over documents to Republican groups.
Naturally, media coverage at the time focused on how unethically the documents were obtained, instead of on the explosive content. We all know that when the tables are turned and it is Republican info that has been unethically obtained, the focus is on the content, not how the information was obtained.
Leahy just reminded everyone of the content of “Memogate,” something he probably should have avoided. My former colleague, Tim Carney, lays out in the Washington Examiner what Democrats were revealed to be saying about President George W. Bush judicial nominees. The most damning information from the leaked documents was the racist reasons Democrats refused to confirm Miguel Estrada to the D.C. Circuit Court. One of the leaked memos was from a staffer to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who wrote that liberal groups “identified Miguel Estrada (D.C. Circuit) as especially dangerous, because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment.”
Those memos also revealed that Democrats throwing around the term “Nazi” is nothing new, as one memo claimed that “most of Bush’s nominees are Nazis.”
Democrats are desperate to keep Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court because he would cement a conservative majority. They were also desperate to keep a Republican president from nominating the first Latino Supreme Court nominee. When desperate, they resort to petty antics, like demanding more and more records that aren’t asked of other nominees, insisting that without those documents they can’t make a decision — even though they made their decision long before, based on partisan politics.
Thanks for reminding everyone about this, Sen. Leahy.