McConnell on Democrats’ Latest Attack on Justice Brett Kavanaugh
‘When you are this willing to launch unhinged personal attacks, you reveal a whole lot more about your own radicalism than about the men and women you target.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor regarding an unsubstantiated allegation made this weekend against Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh:
“For anybody who’s been reading the news the past few days, it’s probably felt a little like Groundhog Day. Because, over the last couple of days, leading Democrats have tried to grab onto yet another poorly-sourced, thinly-reported, unsubstantiated allegation against Justice Brett Kavanaugh. There they go again. Call it a one-year anniversary re-enactment. Senate Democrats re-opening the sad and embarrassing chapter they wrote last September.
“The latest allegation was blasted out by a major newspaper despite the apparent lack of any corroborating evidence whatsoever. The reporting was so thin, the story ran not in the news section, but on the opinion page. In fact, they’ve already had to issue an enormous correction. The writers conveniently failed to note that the supposed victim herself declined to be interviewed. And several of her friends say she has no memory of any such thing happening.
“We all remember this pattern from last time around: Shoot first and correct the facts later. And here’s another familiar pattern: Just like last September, little things like facts and evidence didn’t stop Democrats from rushing to exploit this. Even as the media was trying to backpedal, a number of the Democrat presidential candidates were hysterically calling for Justice Kavanaugh to be impeached. That includes several of our own Senate colleagues. And even after the massive correction, no one in that group has backed off of their ridiculous threat.
“This laughable suggestion is already earning scorn throughout the country, across the political spectrum. A majority of Senators — and the American people — rightly rejected these politics of unsubstantiated personal destruction last year. It’s just as transparent and self-serving today. But it would be a mistake to dismiss this as a bad case of sour grapes. This is not just a left-wing obsession with one man. It is part of a deliberate effort to attack judicial independence.
“Six of the Democrat presidential candidates — plus one who has now quit to run for the Senate — have publicly flirted with packing the Supreme Court. Court-packing. Today’s bold new Democrat idea is a failed power grab from the 1930s. Just a few weeks ago, some Senate Democrats nakedly threatened the Supreme Court justices in writing. Our colleagues sent the Court an outlandish brief, gravely intoning that ‘the Supreme Court is not well.’ Here was the punchline: Either issue rulings we like or we’ll pack the court. This is not normal political behavior. These are the actions of a political party whose agenda is so alien to the Constitution that they feel threatened by fair and faithful judges.
“Well, I would say this: When the simple notion that judges should be faithful to the Constitution looks like an attack on your agenda, maybe it’s your agenda that needs a makeover, not our independent judiciary. When you are this willing to launch unhinged personal attacks, you reveal a whole lot more about your own radicalism than about the men and women you target. This is my commitment, and the commitment of all my Republican colleagues: As long as we remain in the Senate, we will fight to preserve our fair and independent judiciary.”
Related Issues: Supreme Court
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