U.S. Senate confirms Liles Burke to be North Alabama U.S. District Judge
The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed an associate judge on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to serve as U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama. U.S. Senator Richard Shelby made the announcement of Judge Liles Burke‘s confirmation. “I am proud to have voted tonight to confirm Judge Liles Burke to be a District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama,” said Shelby. “He is extremely qualified for this high honor, having served as a judge in Alabama for over a decade. I congratulate Judge Burke on this prestigious achievement and am confident he will serve our nation well.” Burke’s confirmation came as Senate leaders struck a deal to approve 15 federal, lifetime judges in exchange for recessing early through the Nov. 6 election. The Senate had previously been scheduled to be in session until Oct. 26, and the early recess will allow vulnerable Democrats to return to their home states and campaign for their seats. About Burke Burke, a native of Marshall County, was named the Municipal Judge for the City of Arab, Ala. in 2001. He held that office until 2006 when he was appointed Marshall County District Judge by former Governor Bob Riley. During his time as a trial judge, he created Marshall County’s first family drug court and started one of the state’s first domestic violence courts. In 2008 Burke was elected to a full term on the District Court, without opposition. During his years on the bench, he has served as President of the Alabama Appellate Judges Association and has been officer in both the Alabama District Judges Association and the Alabama Juvenile Judges Association. In February of 2011, Burke was named by former Governor Robert Bentley to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, filling the office left vacant by the election of Judge Kelli Wise to the Alabama Supreme Court. He was elected to a six-year term in 2012 without opposition, and still serves there through his confirmation process. In addition to his experience in the courtroom, Judge Burke serves as the leader of the Marshall County United Way fund drive, City of Arab Chamber of Commerce, and the Arab Historical Preservation Committee. He is also a Rotarian and alumnus of Leadership Alabama, an officer in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps of the Alabama Army National Guard, and an assistant organist at First United Methodist Church of Arab. Burke received his B.A. from the University of Alabama and J.D. from the University of Alabama School of Law. Other judicial nominees Following Thursday’s vote, five Alabama judicial nominees, initially nominated by President Trump in 2017, have been confirmed. One 2018 nominee still awaits confirmation, and another awaits a hearing before the Judiciary Committee.
What they’re saying: Alabama politicians react to Brett Kavanaugh confirmation
Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in Saturday night as the 114th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, after weeks of debate over sexual misconduct and judicial temperament that divided the nation. He was ultimately confirmed in the Senate by a vote of 50 – 48. Here’s what Alabama politicians are saying about his confirmation: U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby: I voted today to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who has devoted 26 years of public service to our nation as a jurist, lawyer, and professor. During the hearings, I found Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony to be credible. I also found the subsequent FBI report to be thorough. As a senator, my job is to carefully consider and review all available information. After doing so, it is evident that the accusations against Judge Kavanaugh are uncorroborated, and there is no confirmation of any of the alleged misconduct. During his time as a federal judge, Judge Kavanaugh has been a principled, intelligent, and steadfast supporter of the rule of law. In accordance with my constitutional right to ‘advice and consent,’ I advise that Judge Kavanaugh be the next associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States.” Alabama 1st District U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne: Our nation is better off with Judge Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, and I am glad the circus is over. I applaud the senators who supported Judge Kavanaugh, including Alabama Senator Richard Shelby. This process and the shameful tactics used have been an embarrassment to our nation, but I hope we can now move forward as a country and not return to these pathetic political games again. Terry Lathan | Chairman of the Alabama Republican Party The Alabama Republican Party congratulates Judge Brett Kavanaugh on his confirmation. Judge Kavanaugh has our full support as he begins his honorable journey serving the American people on our nation’s highest court. In celebrating this confirmation, we thank Senator Shelby and his Republican colleagues for their yes votes. Unlike Senator Jones, Senator Shelby exemplified what it means to be a true public servant by representing the majority of Alabamians when he cast his final vote. Without meeting with Judge Kavanaugh, Doug Jones even went so far as to insinuate his opinion mattered more than those of the people he was elected to serve… It is clear that Senator Doug Jones’ allegiance lies not to his Alabama constituents, but strongly to the Democrat Party. Voters will remember this when they head to the polls in 2020. Alabama 2nd District U.S. Rep. Martha Roby: Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a conservative, experienced jurist who I believe will be a strict constitutionalist on the Supreme Court. I am pleased that the United States Senate voted to confirm him, and I am confident he will serve the Court and the American people admirably. Alabama 7th District U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell: When we appoint a Supreme Court justice for life, their honesty, their temperament, and their credibility should not be in question. But Judge Kavanaugh fails on all of those counts. This man should not be on the Supreme Court.
Evangelicals push Senate Republicans to confirm Brett Kavanaugh
Evangelical activists want Republican leaders to act more forcefully to send Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, expressing skepticism about the decades-old allegations of sexual assault levied against the federal judge. The political flashpoint is playing out only weeks before midterm elections in which conservative voters will be critical to the GOP drive to maintain control of Congress. Kavanaugh’s nomination was a prime topic Friday at the annual Values Voter summit as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, faith leaders and others vowed that President Donald Trump‘s nominee would win confirmation. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, the organizer of the conference, said Republicans needed to “move much more aggressively,” contending the Senate had been “very accommodating” to California college professor Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault more than 30 years ago when they were teenagers. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations and offered to testify under oath to the committee. Republicans and Ford were negotiating Friday on whether Ford will testify next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Gary Bauer, the president of American Values and a former policy aide to President Ronald Reagan, told the summit that he was praying for Ford but cast doubt over the allegations. To make his point, he re-enacted what a conversation might be like between Ford and law enforcement. “If you walked into a police station, or an FBI agent, if you walked in anywhere and said ‘I want to report a sexual assault.’ ‘Yes, ma’am.’ ‘When did this happen?’ ’36 years ago.’ ‘Excuse me?’ ’36 years ago. Yes.’ ‘Do you have any eyewitnesses?’ ‘Well, there are two eyewitnesses but they both deny it happened,’” Bauer said, drawing laughter from the audience. “‘Where did it happen?’ ‘It was at a house but I don’t know whose house.’ ‘How did you get there?’ ‘I don’t know how I got there.’ ‘How did you get home?’ ‘I don’t know how I got home.’” McConnell was quick to reassure the crowd of core Republican supporters. “In the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States Supreme Court,” the Kentucky Republican said. “Keep the faith, don’t get rattled by all of this. We’re going to plow right through it and do our jobs.” Bauer added that he doesn’t know Ford. “I don’t know her values but what she’s saying is unproven and I would argue it’s unprovable,” Bauer said. “There’s reasons why most laws and most crimes have statutes of limitation. Because a week after a crime, it is difficult to reconstruct what happened. Thirty-six years later? Now look, we can’t prove what she said. But there is something we can prove and that is Judge Kavanaugh’s character.” Perkins said McConnell had been methodical in attempting to win Kavanaugh’s confirmation “but you’ve got to look at what he’s working with. He’s working with some Republicans who look like they grew up on a boneless chicken ranch. They don’t really have much backbone and when it comes to the pressure, they hide.” Perkins said Senate Republicans should allow Ford to speak. “If she says, ‘I can’t do it this day,’ and they give her another day, ‘I can’t do it.’ Look, move forward. The American people deserve a vote as well. Their voice needs to be heard in this process.” Evangelical leaders said if Kavanaugh failed to win confirmation, that could drive up turnout among Republican voters in November, when the party is defending its House majority and a narrow edge in the Senate. But a collapse of the nomination also would direct finger-pointing at Senate leaders and derail a top priority for Trump, who is seeking to cement a conservative imprint on the court for decades. Michele Bachmann, a former Minnesota congresswoman and 2012 Republican presidential candidate, said the 36-year-old allegations against Kavanaugh had “come out of nowhere and I think the Senate has bent over backwards to take this woman’s allegations seriously and to give her a hearing.” “She’s been back-peddling, her allegations have actually been falling apart, they haven’t gotten stronger,” Bachmann said in an interview, adding: “We’re probably going to hear her make allegations and he will deny them. Then it’s really up to the senators to vote. That’s what this is about.” “This whole rollout of this fight against Brett Kavanaugh has been nothing but Kabuki theater and really a disaster on the part of the Democrats,” Bachmann said. “From the very first day when all of their paid people came in and were screaming throughout this hearing. This had nothing to do with order and decorum and getting to the truth.” Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Doug Jones: ‘Hit the pause button’ on Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote
Alabama’s newly elected U.S. Sen. Doug Jones says the U.S. Senate ought to “hit the pause button” on vote to confirm President Donald Trump‘s U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Jones made the comment via Twitter Sunday evening after the woman who accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her during their teenage years identified herself in a report from The Washington Post on Sunday afternoon. Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor in Northern California, said Kavanaugh tried to “attack [her] and remove [her] clothing” during a party when both of them were high school students in Maryland in the early 80s. Jones tweeted, “We cannot rush to move forward under this cloud.” “This was a very brave step to come forward. It is more important than ever to hit the pause button on Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote until we can fully investigate these serious and disturbing allegations. We cannot rush to move forward under this cloud,” Jones tweeted. This was a very brave step to come forward. It is more important than ever to hit the pause button on Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote until we can fully investigate these serious and disturbing allegations. We cannot rush to move forward under this cloud. https://t.co/SIHzdnnOFJ — Doug Jones (@SenDougJones) September 16, 2018 Kavanaugh, in a statement Monday, called the allegation “completely false.” The White House said it stood by Kavanaugh’s previous denial of any such incident.
Brett Kavanaugh: I didn’t recognize Parkland dad seeking handshake
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says he would have shaken the hand of a school shooting victim’s father during a break in last week’s Senate hearing had he recognized him before being whisked away by security detail. Kavanaugh’s explanation for the encounter with Fred Guttenberg— captured in an Associated Press photo that went viral on social media — was among a 263-page response to written questions from senators on a range of issues including abortion, executive power and his personal finances. Kavanaugh wrote that he assumed the man who approached him “and touched my arm” during a break at the Senate Judiciary Committee proceedings had been one of the many protesters in the hearing room. Guttenberg’s 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was among 17 people killed on Feb. 14 at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. “It had been a chaotic morning,” Kavanaugh wrote. “I unfortunately did not realize that the man was the father of a shooting victim from Parkland, Florida. Mr. Guttenberg has suffered an incalculable loss. If I had known who he was, I would have shaken his hand, talked to him, and expressed my sympathy. And I would have listened to him.” Kavanaugh’s security detail ushered him out in a “split second,” according to the judge’s response to a written question from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. It was among 1,287 questions from senators, almost all from Democrats. Pressed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., if he had asked police to intervene, Kavanaugh wrote, “No.” The flood of new documents comes as the Judiciary Committee is set to meet Thursday to consider Kavanaugh’s confirmation, a vote that is expected to take place later this month. Democrats are fighting Kavanaugh’s nomination and decrying the process that Republicans used to compile his government records for review. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., on Wednesday night released a new batch of committee confidential documents about Kavanaugh, repeating a tactic that could prompt a review from the Senate Ethics Committee. The 28 new “committee confidential” documents from Booker are from Kavanaugh’s time in the White House counsel’s office during the George W. Bush administration and show his involvement in judicial nominations, including for some of the more controversial judges of the era. Booker is being criticized by his GOP colleagues and outside groups for releasing the documents, which the Judiciary Committee is holding back on a confidential basis that makes them accessible only to senators. Last week, he released some documents that were later made public by the committee, but also others that weren’t. Wednesday’s disclosure brings the total to 75. Booker said the documents about Kavanaugh’s work “raise more serious and concerning questions” about his honesty during his testimony before the committee. The documents show Kavanaugh’s involvement in Bush’s nomination of Charles Pickering to an appellate court in the South amid questions about his views on race relations. Kavanaugh had indicated he was not substantially involved in the nomination. At the same time, the conservative group Judicial Watch delivered a letter Wednesday to the Senate Ethics Committee seeking an investigation. It says Booker violated Senate rules against disclosing confidential documents and could face Senate expulsion. Booker “explicitly invited his expulsion from the Senate in his egregious violation of the rules and contempt for the rule of law and the Constitution,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. At issue has been the unprecedented process the Senate Judiciary Committee used for gathering documents on Kavanaugh, an appellate court judge who is President Donald Trump‘s nominee to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy on the court. The Senate is expected to vote on his confirmation by the end of the month. The committee was hoping to quickly process Kavanaugh’s unusually long paper trail and relied on Bush’s lawyer, Bill Burck, to compile the documents, first estimated to be 900,000 pages from Kavanaugh’s time in the counsel’s office. Eventually, some 267,000 pages were made public and 174,000 were held as committee confidential. Democrats have complained the process was a “sham,” as Booker put it. It also excluded any documents Democrats wanted to see from Kavanaugh’s time as Bush’s staff secretary. But Burck’s team stood by the process, according to a letter to the committee Wednesday obtained by The Associated Press. They remain willing to review documents and consent to senators’ requests for disclosure, “when appropriate,” the letter said. Despite those commitments, the letter said one member of the committee has released more than 40 documents without consent, referring to Booker. “Had we been consulted on these universally released documents, we would have consented to their public disclosure,” the letter said. White House spokesman Raj Shah said, “Despite the endless complaints from critics, the committee has received more material regarding Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination than any nominee in history.” He said senators have “more than enough information” to consider Kavanaugh’s nomination. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Critics scrutinize Brett Kavanaugh’s civil rights views ahead of confirmation hearings
Brett Kavanaugh emailed his White House colleagues in June 2003 with an alert: The U.S. Supreme Court was about to release opinions on the University of Michigan’s use of race as a factor to admit students. It was an issue of great interest to his boss, President George W. Bush — who favored race-neutral admissions. Staff prepared a response anticipating the practice would be struck down, saying, “We must be ever mindful not to use means that create another wrong and thus perpetuate our divisions” in the pursuit of diversity. But the next day, justices released a 5-4 opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor upholding the university’s law school admissions policy, a disappointment that prompted then-Bush policy adviser Joel Kaplan to email Kavanaugh, then a White House attorney: “What’s going on???” In a separate 6-3 opinion, the court said race could be a factor in undergraduate admissions, but not the deciding factor. There is no evidence of a reply from Kavanaugh from his time in the White House counsel’s office. But as President Donald Trump‘s nominee to the Supreme Court, his views on affirmative action, along with voting rights and discrimination, are coming under intense scrutiny by civil rights organizations as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to begin confirmation hearings Tuesday. “We are confident that if he’s confirmed to the court, he would undermine the court’s integrity and would prove a grave threat to civil rights, racial justice and the marginalized communities that the Legal Defense Fund represents,” Janai Nelson, associate director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said Thursday as the organization announced opposition to Kavanaugh’s nomination. Civil rights organizations that have been combing through Kavanaugh’s 300-plus decisions during 12 years as a federal appeals court judge in Washington, D.C., his work as a lawyer and his time inside Bush’s White House say there are red flags. He co-wrote a brief as a private attorney in a case involving native Hawaiians that they fear signals his personal opposition to affirmative action, and he wrote the appellate court opinion upholding South Carolina’s voter ID law. Kavanaugh’s record also includes opinions that civil rights advocates would praise in other candidates, including that a single utterance of a racial epithet toward a black employee — a word Kavanaugh said was “probably the most offensive word in English” — could create a hostile work environment under federal law, and a suggestion that federal courts should make it clear that discriminatory actions by employers violate the Civil Rights Act. That contrasting record underscores the challenge facing groups that already opposed Kavanaugh because he was on a list of potential nominees put forward by the conservative Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation, essentially certifying them as appropriately conservative for Trump. The president has vowed to move the high court to the right while replacing retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. The White House had no comment for this story but referred The Associated Press to a former Kavanaugh law clerk, an African-American, who said Kavanaugh is attuned to civil rights and racial justice issues. Luke McCloud, who clerked for Kavanaugh from 2013 to 2014 and is now in private practice, praised Kavanaugh’s efforts to recruit and mentor minority lawyers, saying Kavanaugh “acknowledges the history and current reality of race in this country and takes it into account as he can within the confines of his role as a judge.” Kavanaugh’s keen interest in affirmative action is evident in the released White House emails. Although he appeared careful to withhold his own opinion, he clearly was interested in Bush’s anti-affirmative action views, often emailing and receiving articles and opinion pieces on the issue. In private practice earlier, Kavanaugh wrote a brief along with failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork challenging a law banning non-native Hawaiians from voting in Office of Hawaiian Affairs elections. He also wrote an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal sharply criticizing the policy, but during confirmation hearings for the appeals court post, he said he wrote the piece to advance his client’s position and refused to say whether he agreed. The case involved a $300 million public trust fund set up by Congress to compensate ancestors of native Hawaiians whose land and cultural heritage were taken by the U.S. The state said only blood relatives could vote in board of trustees elections, while Kavanaugh challenged that as discriminatory to non-indigenous residents. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the law amounted to racial discrimination. Kavanaugh’s brief and other comments around the case indicate that he thinks government will ultimately end up race-blind, which “could signal where his own thinking is” on affirmative action, said Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, who also opposes Kavanaugh. “His record is deeply disturbing … but there is a lot we don’t know.” Opponents point to other issues that trouble them, especially his 2012 ruling on South Carolina’s voter ID law. Kavanaugh said the statute was legal because those who had difficulty getting a photo ID still could vote by signing an affidavit. The law had been blocked by the Justice Department, which sided with those who said such laws make it more difficult for minorities to vote and are pushed by conservatives to dampen minority turnout. But Kavanaugh also delayed the law’s implementation to give voters who lacked ID’s time to get them, acknowledging that most were black, and writing: “There is too much of a risk to African-American voters for us to roll the dice.” Critics also question his record on employment discrimination, citing an appellate court case in which Kavanaugh disagreed with the majority of judges, who said that a black woman fired from a job as House of Representatives deputy budget director could pursue claims of racial discrimination and retaliation in federal court. “We’re mostly concerned about whether Judge Kavanaugh, if confirmed, would approach civil rights issues with the appropriate understanding and respect for the history of racial discrimination in this country,” said Thomas
Alabamians rally with Concerned Women of America in support of Brett Kavanaugh SCOTUS confirmation
Nearly a hundred conservatives from throughout the Birmingham area braved the Alabama summer heat to join Concerned Women for America (CWA) — the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization — on Thursday, August 23, 2018 for a rally on their national bus tour. Gathered outside of Hoover Tactical in Hoover, Ala., the CWA team joined with local conservative leaders to rally conservative Alabamians to use their voices encourage Sen. Doug Jones to support Kavanaugh’s confirmation. This was their only stop in Alabama before heading south to Tallahassee and then Jacksonville, Florida rounding out a national bus tour that will end in Washington, D.C. “This is the moment conservative women and evangelical voters have been waiting for and a huge reason why they voted for President Trump,” said Penny Nance, CEO and President of Concerned Women for America in a press release. “This in an historic moment for our nation, and I could not be more proud to stand alongside conservative women across the country in support of Judge Kavanaugh,” continued Nance. “Judge Kavanaugh is uniquely qualified, fair, and impartial and fulfills President Trump’s campaign promise to nominate a constitutional conservative to the Supreme Court.” “It is so important that everyone be involved with this confirmation process,” said one of the rally’s speakers, former State Rep. Paul DeMarco. “The public sentiment has been supportive of this nominee because he is so well-qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. And our United States senators need to hear from the citizens of Alabama that we want to see Brett Kavanaugh confirmed as the next Supreme Court Justice.” The large crowd was among the largest crowds of the entire CWA tour a signal that organizers hope will send a clear message to Senator Jones. “We had a great crowd out today to show that support and we appreciate Penny Nance for bringing their bus tour to Alabama,” DeMarco added. The event also drew the attention of Republican Women of Shelby County President Dawn Ray, who’s been affiliated with CWA for over 30 years and supports their mission of protecting and promoting “Biblical values and Constitutional principles through prayer, education, and advocacy.” Ray attended Thursday’s event and said she believes Kavanaugh “is imminently qualified” and “is the right person for the job” on the Supreme Court. “Kavanaugh has vast experience and a record to support his position as a Constitutionalist. I.e., he has and will interpret the law as the Founder’s intended and believes in the Separation of Powers. The judicial branch was intended to interpret and not create law, which is the legislature’s responsibility,” Ray explained. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Kavanaugh will sit on the court for life, or until he chooses to retire. “The confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh should matter not only to Alabamians, but to citizens of all states,” Ray added. Notable attendees included State Reps. Jim Carns, Matt Fridy, and April Weaver. Jefferson County DA Mike Anderton, Constable Gilbert Douglas. As well as the Jefferson and Shelby County GOP Chairs. Representatives from Kay Ivey’s reelection campaign were also on hand as were ALGOP staff.
CIA nominee Gina Haspel wins Senate panel backing, confirmation expected
Gina Haspel, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the CIA, won the backing of the Senate intelligence committee on Wednesday, paving the way for her expected confirmation to lead the spy agency. The panel voted 10-5 to advise the full Senate to confirm Haspel, whose nomination has renewed debate over the harsh interrogation program the CIA conducted on terror suspects after 9/11. Haspel, who supervised a CIA detention site in Thailand in 2002, has told Congress that the agency shouldn’t have used those harsh tactics and has vowed not to restart them. The committee released the result of the vote, conducted in closed session, without giving further details. However, all eight Republicans and two of the seven Democrats on the panel earlier expressed support for Haspel. The remaining five Democrats had announced their opposition. The confirmation vote by the full Senate could occur before the end of the week. “Gina Haspel is the most qualified person the president could choose to lead the CIA and the most prepared nominee in the 70 year history of the agency,” said Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C. “She has acted morally, ethically, and legally, over a distinguished 30-year career and is the right person to lead the agency into an uncertain and challenging future.” She also had the support of the committee’s top-ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia. “As director of the CIA, Gina Haspel will be the first operations officer in more than five decades to lead the agency,” Warner said. “Most importantly, I believe she is someone who can and will stand up to the president if ordered to do something illegal or immoral — like a return to torture,” he said. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who has staunchly opposed Haspel, called her nomination one of the most “self-serving abuses of power in recent history” because Haspel, as acting CIA director, was in a decision-making role in determining what parts of her undercover career were declassified. He likened that to a “stacking of the deck” and said he would continue to seek the declassification of details about her past activities at the agency. Warner said he would continue to seek the declassification of a Justice Department report about the destruction of more than 90 videotapes showing the harsh interrogation of one terror suspect. No charges were filed as a result of that report. Haspel drafted a cable that ordered the tapes destroyed, but the cable was sent by her boss, Jose Rodriguez, who has repeatedly taken responsibility for the order. The interrogation program became one of the darkest chapters of the CIA’s history and tainted America’s image worldwide after the Sept. 11 attacks. Haspel has not disclosed any details of what she did in connection with the program or say whether she thought it had been immoral. But during her confirmation hearing last week, she said she doesn’t believe torture works as an interrogation technique and that her “strong moral compass” would prevent her from carrying out any presidential order she found objectionable. “With the benefit of hindsight and my experience as a senior agency leader, the enhanced interrogation program is not one the CIA should have undertaken,” according to Haspel’s written answers to some 60 additional questions from lawmakers. Bolstering the comments she made during her hearing, Haspel wrote, “I do not support use of enhanced interrogation techniques for any purpose.” Attention now turns to the vote by the full Senate, which has yet to be scheduled. Haspel has already won the backing of several Democrats. They include Mark Warner of Virginia, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Joe Donnelley of Indiana, Bill Nelson of Florida and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. The only Senate Republicans who are not expected to vote for her are Kentucky’s Rand Paul and Arizona’s John McCain, who is battling cancer and is not expected to be present for the ballot. Haspel’s opponents, however, continue to weigh into the debate. “Ms. Haspel is cynically trying to offer mere words in an attempt to win votes to support her confirmation,” said Gen. Charles Krulak, former commandant of the Marine Corps. “The definition of moral courage is doing the right thing at the right time for the right reasons when no one’s looking. Gina Haspel failed that test,” said Krulak, who organized a letter signed by more than 100 retired generals and admirals expressing concern over her nomination. Daphne Eviatar with Amnesty International on Tuesday called Haspel’s nomination an “affront to human rights.” “This country has not held any officials accountable for the use of torture, so it’s even more outrageous that the government is considering someone to the chief intelligence position in spite of her alleged participation in that clearly illegal and immoral activity,” she said. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Democrats oppose Neil Gorsuch, say he rules against workers
Three additional Democrats said Friday that they will vote against Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch and will support a filibuster against him. California Sen. Kamala Harris and Washington Sen. Patty Murray both said that they believe the Denver-based appeals court judge has ruled too often against workers and in favor of corporations. New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall said Gorsuch had failed to convince him he’d be an independent voice against President Donald Trump, who nominated Gorsuch in January. “The stakes don’t get any higher,” Harris said in a piece in the San Francisco Chronicle. “Some argue that if a nominee has a stellar legal resume, he or she is qualified to sit on the bench and our job is done. I disagree. As U.S. senators, we have an obligation to also examine a nominee’s legal approach and ask whether he or she considers the impact of those decisions on our society and the daily lives of our people.” Murray said she also is opposing Gorsuch because of “chaos” in Trump’s administration, pointing to his refugee and travel ban blocked by federal courts and an FBI investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections with Russia. She said those issues have led her to conclude that “I cannot trust that President Trump is acting in the best interest of our country or our democracy and that I cannot support moving forward with his choice for the court.” Udall echoed those concerns and said Gorsuch failed to win him over when the two met. Gorsuch “failed to answer questions that are critical for me — his position on the rights of working mothers, whether women can choose their own health care decisions, LGBTQ rights and dark money in our elections, to name a few,” Udall said. The Senate Judiciary Committee held four days of confirmation hearings this week, including two days questioning Gorsuch. He refused to give his personal views on most any issue, including abortion, campaign finance and others that Democrats questioned him on. But in response to Democratic criticism, he repeatedly said he has often ruled for the “little guy” over corporations. He said several cases in which he has ruled for corporations over workers “don’t represent the body of my work.” He also stressed he’d be an independent voice, saying that “no man is above the law.” Harris, Murray and Udall join several other Democratic colleagues who have said they will vote against Gorsuch, including five Democrats who announced their opposition Thursday. Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer was one of those five, and he also said Democrats would try and block the nominee. Still, majority Republicans are expected to ensure that he reaches the bench, perhaps before the middle of April. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch stresses ‘open mind’ on rulings
Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch batted away Democrats’ efforts Tuesday to get him to reveal his views on abortion, guns and other controversial issues, insisting he keeps “an open mind for the entire process” when he issues rulings. Gorsuch answered both friendly questions from majority Republicans and more probing questions from Democrats the same way, maintaining what he described as a rigid neutrality that is required of a judge. “My personal views, I tell you, Mr. Chairman, are over here. I leave those at home,” Gorsuch said in response to a question from Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Questioned by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California about the Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling affirming the right of people to keep guns in their homes for self-defense — District of Columbia v. Heller — Gorsuch said, “Whatever is in Heller is the law and I follow the law. … It’s not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing.” As a long day of questioning wore on, senators and Gorsuch engaged in a routine well-established in recent confirmation hearings. The nominee resists all requests to say how he feels about Supreme Court decisions, even as he is asked about them again and again. Gorsuch, nominated by new President Donald Trump, tried to allay Democrats’ worries about his impartiality by saying he keeps an open mind, consistent with one of his mentors. “I decide cases,” not political issues, he said, invoking former Justice Byron White. “It’s a pretty good philosophy for a judge.” Gorsuch said he has not been asked since his nomination to make promises about future rulings. “I don’t believe in litmus tests for judges,” he said. “No one in that process asked me for any commitments.” Republicans are unanimously supporting Gorsuch, and they asked supportive questions as he appeared for a second day before the committee. But Democrats made clear on the first day that they were in no mood to “rubber stamp a nominee selected by extreme interest groups and nominated by a president who lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes,” as Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont put it. Gorsuch himself sought to emphasize his strong belief in the separation of powers in his opening statement Monday, pledging to be independent or “hang up the robe.” Seeking to take the edge off Democratic complaints that he has favored the wealthy and powerful in more than 10 years as a federal judge, the 49-year-old Coloradan said he has ruled both for and against disabled students, prisoners and workers alleging civil rights violations. A Supreme Court confirmation hearing is a major occasion on Capitol Hill, but Monday’s was overshadowed by a separate event in the Capitol complex. On the House side, FBI Director James Comey testified that the bureau is investigating Russian meddling in last year’s election and possible links and coordination between Russia and associates of Trump. Blending the two hearings, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut referred to “a looming constitutional crisis” that the Supreme Court might need to resolve. The court’s eight current justices are roughly divided ideologically between conservatives and liberals. The Russian allegations as well as Trump’s verbal attacks on federal judges both during the campaign and as president have fed into Democratic efforts to force Gorsuch to break publicly with the man who nominated him. Gorsuch already has told some senators in private meetings that he found the criticism of the judges disheartening. For their part, Republicans derided the Democrats’ strategy. “The nominee before us today is not President Trump,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. “The nominee before us today is not Leader McConnell,” the Senate GOP leader, Mitch McConnell, who engineered a 10-month blockade of Obama’s court pick, Judge Merrick Garland, last year. Justice Antonin Scalia died last February and Republicans insisted that the next president would fill the court vacancy. Democrats remain incensed over Garland’s treatment, and are facing pressures from liberal voters and interest groups to oppose Gorsuch, but he seems all but certain to be confirmed. Seeming to acknowledge that outcome, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., remarked to Gorsuch: “You’re going to have your hands full with this president. He’s going to keep you busy.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Neil Gorsuch seen by many as smart, modest nominee for high court
It’s poker night in a row house on Cranham Street, Oxford, England, and Neil Gorsuch, studying for yet another degree, is feeling down. His housemates decide that what Gorsuch needs is a girlfriend. Accounts differ on whether it was a dare, goading or a gentle prod, but Gorsuch phones a woman he’d clicked with during a school dinner more than a year earlier – and she doesn’t remember him. Awkward. That 1994 phone call may be one of the few times that Gorsuch, a federal judge nominated for the Supreme Court by President Donald Trump, didn’t immediately stand out from the crowd. Louise Burletson agreed to go out with him anyway, and ultimately married the man Trump now describes as “perfect in almost every way” for the high court. Gorsuch, whose Senate confirmation hearings begin Monday, is roundly described by colleagues and friends as a silver-haired combination of wicked smarts, down-to-earth modesty, disarming warmth and careful deliberation. Critics largely agree. But even so, they don’t think he belongs on the court, believing him too quick to side with conservative and business interests at the expense of working Americans and the poor. At age 49, Gorsuch already has marked his 10th anniversary as an appellate judge in Colorado, styling himself in the mold of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, the conservative powerhouse whom he would replace. In his writings and lectures, Gorsuch offers himself as a “workaday judge,” one wearing “honest, unadorned black polyester” robes from a uniform supply store. (Those robes perhaps hiding coffee stains on the shirt underneath, Gorsuch admits.) Self-deprecation is not just his shtick. Gorsuch never mentioned to his best friend, Michael Trent, that he’d been added to the list of prospective justices Trump released last fall. Superstitious about his prospects for joining the court, the Denver-based judge put off decisions about where his family would live in Washington and his two teenage girls would attend school, telling Trent, “I’m not there yet. — Who is Neil Gorsuch? He’s the dad whose standing birthday present from his family is an agreement to watch a Western with him. He’s the sports nut who jogs with his law clerks, teaches them the Zen of fly fishing and waits at the top of the ski slopes to see which of them he’ll need to help up after a fall. He’s the friend whose buddies remember his spot-on impressions of Jimmy Stewart and John McLaughlin, the conservative commentator who pioneered TV political talkfests. He’s the writerly judge who crafts his opinions with uncommon clarity, going so far as to diagram a sentence in one ruling. “He’s someone who knows the names of the security guards at the courthouse and gets to know who their families are,” says former law clerk Theresa Wardon. “He’s the kind of person who talks about law for fun,” says Joshua Goodbaum, another former clerk. “He’s a glass-half-full kind of guy,” says Luis Reyes, a former colleague at the Justice Department. He’s also the judge who wrote that a university’s six-month sick leave policy was “more than sufficient” for a cancer patient who sought more time off when a flu epidemic hit and she worried about how an infection might affect her weakened immune system. Says Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America: “I’m hearing he’s a really nice guy. That’s way too low a bar for a jurist on the highest court in the land.” — From his boyhood in Colorado, Gorsuch was a dutiful student, “always on the brainy side,” says younger brother J.J. Gorsuch. Theirs was a typical Western childhood, filled with family outings to go hiking, skiing and fishing. Even Gorsuch’s childhood mischief tended toward the intellectual – he once read a book about gambling and put it to use by starting a basement casino for neighborhood kids. Flash forward a few years: Gorsuch is in a coat and tie at Georgetown Prep, an all-boys school in suburban Washington. President Ronald Reagan had chosen his mother, Anne Gorsuch, a state legislator, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, and she brought her three children east. Her husband stayed in Colorado as their marriage dissolved. Gorsuch’s friends at the Jesuit school included Bill Hughes, whose father was a Democratic congressman from New Jersey, and Trent, his father the deputy transportation secretary. Each felt pressure to protect his family name. “We were all very cognizant of the responsibility we had to our parents not to screw up,” remembers Hughes. With politics in the air, Gorsuch inhaled deeply. He led schoolmates to the Capitol to attend a rally for insurgents opposing the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. His yearbook entry includes a joking reference to founding the “Fascism Forever” club, a dig at left-leaning teachers. Most significant, he watched his mother’s stormy 22-month tenure at EPA end with her forced resignation after being cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents. Anne Burford, by then remarried, recalled her son telling her: “You only did what the president ordered. Why are you quitting? You raised me not to be a quitter.” After high school, Gorsuch embarked on a grueling, decade-long tutorial: In and out of Columbia in three years, still finding time to co-found a conservative newspaper and magazine. On to Harvard Law without a break. Off to Oxford to study legal philosophy, ducking out in the middle for a clerkship with Supreme Court Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy. “I kept asking him, ‘When are you going to stop doing all this and get a real job?’” recalls Trent. — Finally, in 1995, it was time for that real job. Gorsuch passed up the big firms to go with a start-up, diving into “the muck and mess of real-life litigation,” representing both plaintiffs and defendants, recalls former partner Mark Hansen. “He decided to go someplace where he’d get more experience, faster, and he could help build something,” says Hansen. He credits Gorsuch with a dogged work ethic – billing an average 2,400-3,000 hours
Tom Price nears Senate confirmation as Donald Trump health secretary
Republicans pushed President Donald Trump‘s pick for health secretary toward Senate confirmation on Thursday, overpowering Democrats who complained that the GOP drive to erase and replace former President Obama’s health care law will end up taking away peoples’ coverage. The debate over the nomination of Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., to head the Health and Human Services Department was the latest over Trump’s choices, which have prompted near party-line votes and helped fuel a sour atmosphere in the new president’s first weeks. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., praised Price for knowing “more about health care policy than just about anyone.” He added that the conservative seven-term House member from Atlanta’s suburbs “has a clear-eyed view about Washington’s capacity to do great harm.” Democrats were strongly against Price, a long-time proponent of dismantling Obama’s health care law and reshaping and curbing Medicare and Medicaid. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said Price’s past support for raising the usual Medicare eligibility age of 65 is “immoral.” And No. 2 Senate Democratic leader Richard Durbin of Illinois said Price’s backing for reshaping Medicare into a voucher-like program would thrust seniors “back into the loving arms of health insurance companies.” Price’s nomination came in a week that has seen Democrats, eager to show liberal constituents that they are taking a stand against Trump, ferociously but unsuccessfully oppose two other nominees for top administration jobs. Over solid Democratic opposition and two GOP defections, it took a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence for the Senate to approve wealthy GOP donor Betsy DeVos on Tuesday to head the Education Department. Under the Constitution, one of the duties of a vice president is to break tie votes in the 100-member Senate. On Wednesday, the chamber confirmed Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to be attorney general. That debate was bitter, fueled by Democratic accusations that Sessions lacked a devotion to civil rights laws and wouldn’t stand up to Trump. The Sessions battle also saw a rare Senate wrist-slap against one of its own as Republicans late Tuesday pushed through a rebuke of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., for violating the chamber’s rule against impugning a colleague. That came after Warren read on the Senate floor a 1986 letter from Coretta Scott King, Dr. Martin Luther King‘s widow, criticizing Sessions during his rejected judicial nomination 31 years ago. Republicans have talked longingly of confirming Price because one pillar of their strategy to gut Obama’s law is for the Department of Health and Human Services, which he would run, to issue regulations weakening it. Those might include letting states experiment with how they use federal Medicaid funds and restricting access to free birth control for women who work for religious-affiliated nonprofits. At Senate hearings on Price’s nomination, Democrats focused on the former orthopedic surgeon’s considerable stock holdings, especially in health care industry companies. They’ve accused him of conflicts of interest by acquiring those shares, pushing legislation that could benefit those companies and making investments using insider information. Price has said he’s done nothing wrong. It is against the law for members of Congress to engage in insider trading. Democrats have focused on Price’s purchase last year of around 400,000 shares in Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd., an Australian biotech firm. Price has said he learned of the firm from a colleague, Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., the company’s largest shareholder, and Price testified to Congress that the shares he bought were available to any investor. The company has said Price received a special offer to buy shares at a discount. Price has conceded he understated the value of those stocks in financial disclosure forms he filed. Price also purchased stock last year in Zimmer Biomet, a manufacturer of medical implant devices, around the same time he introduced legislation that would have suspended Medicare rules seen as problematic for such companies. Price has said the purchase was done by his stockbroker. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
