Kavanaugh Paper Trail Creating Problems07/21 09:20

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Judge Brett Kavanaugh has a long record of judicial and 
executive branch service to recommend him as President Donald Trump's nominee 
to the Supreme Court. And that's part of the problem in getting him confirmed 
by the Senate.

   Democrats are demanding to see the conservative appellate court judge's 
lengthy paper trail before they even start meeting with him, let alone casting 
their votes on a lifetime appointment that could shift the court rightward.

   The documents extend far beyond the 53-year-old's nearly 300 rulings as a 
judge on the circuit court of appeals.

   The Democrats are demanding access to paperwork from Kavanaugh's tenure as 
staff secretary in the George W. Bush White House, on the 2000 election 
presidential recount and on Special Counsel Kenneth Starr's probe of Bill 
Clinton. The tally could stretch at least 1 million pages. The paper chase has 
become a game of high-stakes political strategy.

   Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to have Kavanaugh confirmed for 
the start of the Supreme Court session Oct. 1 and to serve up a midterm 
election boost for Republicans in November. But the Democratic search for 
documents could complicate that timeline.

   McConnell spent this week's closed-door GOP policy lunch outlining the 
schedule ahead, senators said. With Republicans holding just a slim 51-seat 
majority, they are under pressure from conservatives to confirm the nominee, 
who could tilt the court's decisions for a generation to come. He would take 
the place of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, often a swing vote.

   "We've already begun to hear rumblings from our Democratic colleagues that 
they're going to want to see every scrap of paper that ever came across Brett 
Kavanaugh's desk," the No. 2 Republican, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, told 
reporters.

   But the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of 
California, said in light of this week's "disturbing events" --- namely, 
Trump's Helsinki summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin --- it's all the 
more important to thoroughly vet the president's nominee.

   "It is, ultimately, the Supreme Court that will have the last word on 
whether a sitting president is above the law," she said. "We --- the Senate --- 
and the American public must know where Judge Kavanaugh stands. ... And this 
starts with having access to Judge Kavanaugh's documents from his time in the 
White House and as a political operative."

   At particular issue in the document fight are the years the Yale-educated 
Kavanaugh spent at the White House as staff secretary for Bush --- a job that 
touches almost every slip of paper that makes it to the president's desk --- as 
well as his work during the Clinton probe and the Florida election recount.

   Kavanaugh served in the White House Counsel's Office under Bush beginning in 
2001. He told lawmakers in a May 2006 confirmation hearing for his current job 
that he provided advice on ethics and separation of power issues, the 
nomination of judges, and legislation dealing with tort reform and a federal 
backstop to limit insurers' losses in the event of a terror attack.

   Kavanaugh described the staff secretary position as being "an honest broker 
for the president," someone who tried to ensure that the president received a 
range of policy views on issues of the day in an even-handed way. Democrats say 
his policy-making role was more substantial than that.

   The Judiciary Committee is negotiating how much information will be pulled 
for the confirmation process. The task is daunting, involving a universe of 
paperwork that will need to be culled from the National Archives, the Bush 
library and others, and reviewed by stables of attorneys. Talks are still at 
the early stages.

   Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who said this will be 
his 15th Supreme Court confirmation hearing, promised the "most transparent and 
thorough process" of any of them.

   But he also warned against dragging it out. "I will not allow taxpayers to 
be on the hook for a government-funded fishing expedition," Grassley said.

   He cited the volume of records reviewed in recent Supreme Court 
confirmations: 173,000 pages of documents for the confirmation of Elena Kagan 
in 2010, and 182,000 pages for the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch last year. The 
citation no doubt was by design, showing what the Senate has considered 
appropriate in the past.

   Republicans say dragging out the process might backfire on Democrats if they 
push the votes too close to the midterm election.

   But Democrats appear willing to take that risk. They note that the more 
information that came out about one of Trump's nominees to the circuit court, 
Ryan Bounds, the less support he had. McConnell stunned senators this week when 
he withdrew Bounds from consideration.


(KA)