Tag: Kavanaugh

Kavanaugh accuser admits accusation was false

Judy Munro-Leighton, who alleged in an October 3 email to the Senate Judiciary Committee that she had been raped by Brett Kavanaugh, has now admitted that she fabricated the story as a “tactic” to stop his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In her email, Munro-Leighton identified herself as the “Jane Doe” who had sent an anonymous letter to Senator Kamala Harris in September, alleging that Kavanaugh and a friend had raped her “several times each” in a car. No time frame or additional details were provided. After receiving the email, Judiciary Committee staffers tried in vain to reach Munro-Leighton for nearly a month. When they finally were able to connect with her in early November, she admitted that she had not written the original “Jane Doe” letter and that her email was a way “to grab attention.”

This is appalling. False accusations undermine the very fabric of the justice system, and false accusations against a judge threaten the legitimacy of the courts. They also represent an assault on real accusations, hurting the ability of real victims to tell their stories and seek some measure of justice.

Senator Charles Grassley has referred Munro-Leighton to the FBI for further investigation for the federal violations of making materially false statements and obstruction.

Good.

Some quick thoughts on the Kavanaugh nomination

A few quick hits on President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court:

  1. Predictions are easy to make, and hard to make correctly. If I were better at this, I would have moved to Vegas already.
  2. Judge Kavanaugh will be subject to the same partisan rancor that has infected our federal judicial nomination process for nearly two decades. But he is surely qualified for the Supreme Court. His dozen years on the D.C. Circuit, as well as his educational and professional background, more than qualify him.
  3. That said, I firmly believe that the President would have been more politically expedient for the President to nominate Joan Larsen (or one of several other former state supreme court justices) for the seat. Judge Kavanaugh is a “safe” pick in part because he has the profile of a consummate Washington insider. Born and raised in Bethesda, his professional career has primarily been spent within the federal government, and he doesn’t appear to have spent much time at all outside the Beltway. (Yale and two clerkships seem to be the bulk of his non-D.C. experience). President Trump had a real opportunity to woo voters in Middle America with a non-East Coast pick, and there were several highly qualified nominees of that sort on his 25-person short list. It is disappointing that someone with greater familiarity with America beyond the Beltway wasn’t picked.
  4. In the same vein, and despite Judge Kavanaugh’s credentials, I am also disappointed that another D.C. Circuit judge will populate the Supreme Court. The Court already has three D.C. Circuit alums (Roberts, Thomas, and Ginsburg). The D.C. Circuit is an important court, to be sure, but it hardly needs four justices out of nine with that limited perspective.
  5. I thought Trump would nominate a woman, if only to create a political advantage over the identity politics-obsessed Democrats in the Senate. The Kavanaugh nomination indicates that Trump was not interested in engaging that dynamic this time around. But it’s hard to believe that he wouldn’t revisit it soon. Perhaps he is counting on another vacancy opening in the next two years; if Justice Ginsburg retires, he could nominate a woman (perhaps an even more seasoned Joan Larsen) and really watch the fur fly.
  6. From the perspective of the courts themselves (and, after all, that’s what this blog is about), the Kavanaugh nomination means more judicial cascades to come. Assuming the nomination is successful, Trump will now have the opportunity to fill Judge Kavanaugh’s D.C. Circuit seat with a (presumably) younger judge of the same qualifications and ideological bent. If he pulls such a judge from the district court ranks, he will have another vacancy for the trial courts as well. Given the record pace with which he is nominating (and the Senate is confirming) federal judges, the courts will have a continued infusion of relatively young (Gen X) judges at all levels.