Merrick Garland may play a role in the vacant Supreme Court seat after all. A liberal group has filed a criminal complaint against Brett Kavanaugh for allegedly perjuring himself in front of the Senate judiciary committee. Garland, who is the chief judge of the D.C. federal circuit, was asked to rule upon the complaint or appoint a special panel of jurists to investigate the allegations.
The Democratic Coalition, a group led by Jon Cooper and Scott Dworkin, claim that Kavanaugh lied under oath before the Senate back in 2004 and 2006 when he said he was unaware he read and used stolen emails in 2002. Kavanaugh was going through the hearing process in those years to become a federal district and appellate judge, respectively.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, who was on the Senate judiciary committee back in the mid-2000s, asked Kavanaugh if he was involved in the stolen email scandal while he worked in the Bush White House in the early 2000s. Kavanaugh said he was unaware that emails were stolen at the time, and insisted that if he did know, he would would have blown the whistle on his colleagues. Fast forward to 2018, Leahy, still on the Senate judiciary committee, introduced new evidence that suggested Kavanaugh handled emails that were stolen during that time period.
Those who wish to bring down Kavanaugh's nomination say that these new, unearthed emails demonstrate that the judge perjured himself during the past hearings.
The Democratic Coalition filed a complaint against Kavanaugh earlier this week in regards to these allegations. They have asked Garland to review the claims.
Garland's introduction to the Kavanaugh's nomination process is ironic considering Republicans refused to give him a hearing when former President Barack Obama wished to appoint him to Justice Scalia's old seat.
Now, it appears, Garland will play a role as to whether Kavanaugh gets approved by the Senate.
Fortunately for Kavanaugh, he has been careful to speak highly of Garland the past few months.
“As I’ve said before, [Garland is] a great judge – a great chief judge – and he’s very careful and very hardworking, and we work well together and try to read the statute as written, read the precedent as written,” Kavanaugh said, Fox News reported, according to Mediaite . “He’s a judge – like I try to be as well – a judge who’s not trying to impose any personal preferences onto the decision but take the law as written, and that’s what I’ve tried to do in those cases and that probably explains some of that.”
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