"I Wrote Some of the Stolen Memos That Brett Kavanaugh Lied to the Senate About"

[babylonsister]

I Wrote Some of the Stolen Memos That Brett Kavanaugh Lied to the Senate About
He should be impeached, not elevated.
By Lisa Graves
Sept 07, 2018
11:43 AM


Much of Washington has spent the week focusing on whether Judge Brett Kavanaugh should be confirmed to the Supreme Court. After the revelations of his confirmation hearings, the better question is whether he should be impeached from the federal judiciary.

I do not raise that question lightly, but I am certain it must be raised.

Newly released emails show that while he was working to move through President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees in the early 2000s, Kavanaugh received confidential memos, letters, and talking points of Democratic staffers stolen by GOP Senate aide Manuel Miranda. That includes research and talking points Miranda stole from the Senate server after I had written them for the Senate Judiciary Committee as the chief counsel for nominations for the minority.

Receiving those memos and letters alone is not an impeachable offense.

No, Kavanaugh should be removed because he was repeatedly asked under oath as part of his 2004 and 2006 confirmation hearings for his position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit about whether he had received such information from Miranda, and each time he falsely denied it.

For example, in 2004, Sen. Orrin Hatch asked him directly if he received “any documents that appeared to you to have been drafted or prepared by Democratic staff members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.” Kavanaugh responded, unequivocally, “No.”

In 2006, Sen. Ted Kennedy asked him if he had any regrets about how he treated documents he had received from Miranda that he later learned were stolen. Kavanaugh rejected the premise of the question, restating that he never even saw one of those documents.

Back then the senators did not have the emails that they have now, showing that Miranda sent Kavanaugh numerous documents containing what was plainly research by Democrats. Some of those emails went so far as to warn Kavanaugh not to distribute the Democratic talking points he was being given. If these were documents shared from the Democratic side of the aisle as part of normal business, as Kavanaugh claimed to have believed in his most recent testimony, why would they be labeled “not [for] distribution”? And why would we share our precise strategy to fight controversial Republican nominations with the Republicans we were fighting?

more...

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/judge-brett-kavanaugh-should-be-impeached-for-lying-during-his-confirmation-hearings.html

[NewJeffCT]

1. they definitely have a case for impeachment

but, I expect Republicans to ram through his confirmation. If Democrats can win back the House & Senate this year, they can grind judicial confirmations to a halt. And, if they can win the White House & increase their Senate margin in 2020, they might have a shot at impeachment.

[Cosmocat]

4. IF there is any justice in the world

Let them ram this partisan hack through now, as you note, circle back when there is a D POTUS and congress, impeach the MFer and put in a non right wing scumbag.

[NewJeffCT]

8. I'd love to see them try it

But, the last time a Supreme Court justice was impeached was over 200 years ago, and he ended up getting acquitted.

[Doodley]

27. That would be a good move, but Democrats never play nasty.

[Eyeball_Kid]

28. Kavanaugh, whether a SC justice or not, CAN be indicted and prosecuted.

There are no Constitutional prohibitions against indicting and/or prosecuting Supreme Court justices. They can be impeached or prosecuted. Or both. If Kavanaugh is indicted, he'll have to resign.

[Cartaphelius]

18. Can the Democrats.....

en masse, refer Brett Kavanaugh to the Department of Justice for perjury that led to being placed on the court due to his perjurious testimony, provided under oath?

As the Senate Judicial Committee Republicans, to start, who have sworn to uphold the Constitution, but have instead, openly ignored their duty to protect the Constitution and the citizens of our great nation, should also be referred to the Justice Department for their complicity in the lies provided by Mr. Kavanaugh.

In light of Mr. Cornyns citing Mr. Senate Rules regarding the release of "committee confidential" material as a crime for which Mr. Booker, for telling the truth, can be removed from his Senate seat. How punishing the truth-teller and siding with the criminal instead isn't just a new low,
but is further proof of the Republican coup d'etet of our country.

Finally, the rich have reclaimed america. The time of unions, fair wages, fair anything is gone. If you thought that Lincoln freed the slaves, think again (google it). Mr. Lincoln, a good republican, made everyone without means (money) made all of us slaves.

My country has been stolen by the rich and their paid minions as they are the only ones that can afford a Senator, or Supreme Court "Justice" or a President.

[NBachers]

2. Well worth reading the entire article.

[barbtries]

7. i'll second that

it has facts and details that make how egregious what Kavanaugh did and is doing very clear.

[trueblue2007]

3. he is a LIAR !!!!!!!!1 #LockHimUp !!!!!

[KY_EnviroGuy]

5. He would be OK as a traffic court judge...

in Mumbai, India.

Never met a Repug that will not justify any means to justify their ends to gain power and money....

[DemocracyMouse]

13. Hey, leave Mumbai out of it. That's a great city.

Why not send him to a traffic court position in Darien CT where there's a high concentration of cheating millionaires.

[NBachers]

15. And their spawn

[BigmanPigman]

6. Bookmarked.

I called 8 senators today. Next week I will use this info when I call again.

CALL DC Offices [phone]. RESISTANCE WORKS!

[calimary]

19. This!!!! Btw - if you're having trouble getting through,

google the senator in question, get his/her website and look for the “Contact” link.

Then:
Go to one of the REGIONAL OFFICES. And call in there. They pick right up. There’s no crowd of callers there that forces you to the voicemail department.

Do it.

Btw - I called Susan Collins’s office this week. I don’t live in Maine so I’m not a direct or immediate constituent.

HOWEVER... I AM an indirect constituent. I have a personal connection and thus a personal interest in what happens in the state of Maine. I have a niece there. She’s now in college elsewhere in that state, AND she just lost her mother to cancer only four months ago. And she’s an only child, whose father lives on the West Coast (he and her mother divorced when she was a child). So she’s alone in the world, and I feel a responsibility to speak up for her interests in this case. And, in especially this case, HER RIGHT to physical autonomy, HER RIGHT to choose, to decide, to have full and final jurisdiction over HER body. HER RIGHT to decide for herself. HER RIGHT to have the last word on what happens to HER body.

So what happened? The young staffer who took my call was polite and heard me out, and then asked for my zip code. I gave my niece’s. Because that’s where I’d be, myself, whenever I visited there. And that’s where MY direct link to the state of Maine. That’s what makes me an indirect constituent, a constituent once-removed. But a constituent nonetheless.

And I see no reason why any of us with legitimate personal interests or involvement in another state can’t weigh in with those senators or Congressmembers from that other state.

Do you have (or own) a business in another state?
Relatives living there?
Best friend or college roommate from there?
In-laws there?
Aging parent(s) in a senior living community there?
Do you have a vacation home there?
Corporate or departmental offices there that involve you in some way?
Do you go there for visits to those folks and then spend your money there, supporting the local economy, while you’re there?

Any “yes” answer to any of the above, in my opinion, qualifies you to weigh in there, because YOU have a PERSONAL INTEREST OR OTHER LEGITIMATE INVOLVEMENT there.

Do it. As Nike says: “Just Do It.” But don’t forget to have that zip code handy, or memorized. They WILL ask.

[BigmanPigman]

22. What I have done for over a year is

I Google "Zillow Homes for Sale in so and so city, so and so state" and I get homes for sale in each of the reps' districts/states. I get the whole street address and zip in case they ask. My cell phone area could be from anywhere these days so that part is cool to use my own. It literally takes three min. Then two min to make the call. That is 5 whole min...there is no reason most people can't do this. We are all Dem constituents as far as I am concerned, the particular state doesn't matter...the common national goal is the same...hear our voices for our DEMOCRACY to be strong.

[calimary]

23. That's a FABULOUS idea!

Sometimes they do ask for an address. Just be prepared for it!

[BigmanPigman]

24. I know it...

I Google Zillow on my tablet and have a home for sale on the screen while I make my call...it can't be any easier!
I had been spending a ton of time getting addresses of local post offices in each rep's area then at an Impeach tRump rally when I told a woman what I was doing she told be the Zillow idea, so the credit goes to her. I try to pass it along to others but some people on DU say that is dishonest. I say, "This is a gun fight and I am not bringing a bitter knife". "We go high is" not getting you far if they keep kicking and punching below the waist (that's my opinion anyway).

[calimary]

25. I totally agree with you on that, BigmanPigman.

As much as I admire and respect Michelle Obama’s endorsement of the “when they go low, we go high” response, I can’t go along with it.

Not with this bunch of adversaries, anyway.

That approach only works if both sides basically play fair, and don’t cheat, and recognize and comply with basic rules of conduct in “warfare” (conditions in which we find ourselves now). And we don’t have that. We don’t have a level playing field on which to meet the opposition. We don’t have opponents who play fair or follow ethics or morals or the Constitution when it doesn’t suit their long-range agenda. We can’t follow the conventional rules or conventions when our opponents refuse to be bound by them as we are.

I think we have to think and operate outside that box. And outside those rules and conventions and courtesies. I’m so encouraged by Cory Booker responding to GOP threats of punishment for releasing documents their side arbitrarily labeled “committee confidential”. That’s bullshit and he called bullshit and brazenly added “bring it!”

NOW you’re talking, Democrats! When Mazie Hirono jumps in to have Cory Booker’s back, NOW you’re talking, Democrats! When Kamala Harris becomes defiant and Dick Durbin and others join her, NOW you’re FINALLY talking, Democrats! Fuck their arbitrary “rules” they’d try to impose on us that they themselves would refuse to honor! Fuck ‘em. Fuck them AND their arbitrary bullshit “rules.”

The fact is, they cheated to win in 2016. Again. Every time they try to rig the game with arbitrary bullshit rules and threats, they’re simply cheating to win. Every time they gerrymander a district, they’re merely cheating to win. Every time they come up with another bullshit strategy to suppress the vote (especially of majority black voters and now Latino voters too, I bet), they’re just damn well cheating to win. And now, every time they seek out enemy operatives to freakin’ TEAM UP WITH, to tilt the playing field so they can win, they’re not only cheating to win, they’re committing fucking TREASON. Just in order to win. And AS (not “if”) they continue cheating to win and throwing off rules and proper conventions, I say we should do the same thing.

Especially since they’re always going to assume we’re the same old predictable fuddy-duddies who always follow the rules, and thus get rolled again and again and again. Well screw that! Maybe it’s time for US to be unpredictable. And not always play by the rules. I think it’s time we threw more than a few curveballs their way.

While I watched those defiant Dems this past week, I kept thinking: THIS is how you get those disaffected voters back. THIS is how you fire up your troops and motivate them to pull out all the stops to win. Because that’s what they see YOU doing! You’re giving them a helluva reason to get back in the game because they can see you’re fighting like hell, too. No more of this “let’s play nice” crap. No more of this “oh, well, okay” shit when they pull some nasty devious crap and then somebody on our side says “oh no, we can’t do that” or “oh gee we can’t go there.” Well, THEY do. And THEY win. So maybe it’s time we turned the tables on them. They don’t expect it. They think we’re just chumps. And they laugh at our naïveté as they celebrate yet another ill-gotten gain. Maybe the only way to force them to stop cheating is to hijack their game and play it better than they do.

Admittedly, I don’t know. But one thing I DO know is, our usual conciliatory “oh well okay/we’ll play nice” way hasn’t worked very well.

I think we need to show our voters we don’t bring butter knives and feather dusters to gunfights anymore. Give ‘em something to fight for - AND vote for. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris and the other gutsy in-yer-face Democrats last week sure did. And to that, I say MORE, PLEASE!!!

[BigmanPigman]

30. That is a brilliant post!

Of course I agree 100%. I know Bill Maher has been saying this for years. He asked Salman Rushdie and Fran Leibowitz if they agreed with this about 6 months ago and when they both said "No" he was so frustrated, especially "since they are New Yorkers". I guess he expected more passion from them.

I was so impressed with Harris and Booker I called their offices on Wed to thank them. You are so correct....Dem voters need to SEE and HEAR our reps fight and show us that they ARE fighting for us.

I went to a light brigade protest about a month ago and I said to a fellow resister, "We are NOT snowflakes" when I was told by someone else not to pin my flag to a fence to give my arms a rest (the police wouldn't like it). I kept it up and said, "When they tell me to take it down I will". If I were in DC I would have been arrested by now probably. The resisters at the SCOTUS hearings this week are heroes to me as are the senators who fought back. This has to be our new approach in dealing with liars and cheaters for over 20 years. We have to fight knowing we will be breaking rules and we don't care just like them.

[Honeycombe8]

9. He's another Alito. nt

[Harker]

10. Miranda

should have been read his rights.

[malaise]

11. LOL

Lock them up

[Harker]

12. Forthwith! n/t

[LAS14]

14. Did Rachel pick up on this? I didn't see it last night, and hubby...

... can't remember.

[babylonsister]

17. She's on it tonight! nt

[DesertRat]

16. k&r

Link to tweet

[Nitram]

20. Yes, he should be impeached, and probably will if successfully installed on the court.

If democrats have a majority on both houses of Congress. Big "IF"

[UTUSN]

21. Here's Manuel "Manny" MIRANDA (not the Broadway star). 3 good articles posted inside link.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211109038

[dalton99a]

26. Brett Kavanaugh must be impeached and removed from the bench.

[kimbutgar]

29. He's a nasty little prick