Trump's Supreme Court Seat: The Art of the Steal

Did U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's sudden resignation June 27 stem from corrupt motives?

That question looms even as most court watchers focus on the conventional analysis of evaluating Kennedy's proposed successor, U.S. District of Columbia Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh, 53, whom President Trump (shown above in a file photo with the retiring justice) announced Monday evening on July 9.  Kavanaugh is shown below at Monday's announcement with his family and Trump and at right in a file photo.

No matter what hoopla, drama and distraction Trump planned around the selection the possibility of Deep State corruption deserves our attention — and as thorough an investigation as society's (mostly) timid and toothless watchdogs can muster.

That's particularly so when the high stakes involve an activist ultra-right court majority likely to protect the current president and his cronies from an ongoing corruption probe, with stage apparently set for this appointment by relationships forged with hundreds of millions of dollars in suspicious money disbursed among the current players.

That kind of attack on democracy by corrupt elites, one of the definitions of a "Deep State," is as bad or worse than the court rulings and precedents that a new justice may help create. The intrigue is heightened because Republicans arguably "stole" a seat — and their current majority — by failing to schedule hearings on any Democratic nominee to fill a court vacancy during the last year of President Obama's second term.

There are and will be many mainstream critiques of Kavanaugh and his worthiness for confirmation. The basics were already summarized before the announcement by the specialist SCOTUSblog in a profile by its editor Edith Roberts entitled  Potential nominee profile: Brett Kavanaugh.

But our column takes the scrutiny to a darker level than ventured by establishment commentators. We do so given the high stakes of the process and the repeated gaming of the system by Republicans and their appointees who are typically described as "conservatives" but should be described instead as radical right activists who want a result-oriented federal court system to enact their patrons' agendas, no matter what bromides they utter during charade-like confirmation hearings.

The track record of this and other recent court appointments provides a solid basis for scrutiny, if not outrage.

In this instance, suspicions of the process arise in part because of the vast financial transitions between Deutsche Bank and LNR Property, entities associated with the Trump and Kennedy families, as well as the clear-cut benefit for Republicans and Trump by rousing their base with a new court appointment before the mid-term congressional elections in November. Kennedy had already hired court clerks for the coming term, suggesting that he did not expect to retire until recently.

Trump could also benefit in rulings from a younger and more partisan justice than Kennedy on what are likely to be increasingly serious legal actions by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III against Trump Administration players.

On Monday, Republican Justice Clarence Thomas's wife Virginia (shown in a Gage Skidmore photo) showed yet again her side's utter contempt for non-partisan judicial norms when she used her Twitter feed to defend U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan from accusations that Jordan, as Ohio State University's assistant wrestling coach, had helped enable a team doctor's sexual predations on team members.

Jordan, an Ohio Freedom Caucus leader running to become House Speaker, is one of Trump's major GOP defenders against the corruption probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III. Virginia "Ginni" Thomas is a longtime hard-right Republican activist who years ago showed her corrupt proclivities (See the 2011 Los Angeles Times blockbuster, Clarence Thomas failed to report wife's income, watchdog says) by trying to start a consulting business in advance of her husband's (and Kennedy's) vote to destroy the nation's federal campaign financing system in the all-Republican 5-4 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision.

Kennedy has been part of such presidential puppetry before, most obviously with his vote in the 5-4 Bush-v. Gore decision in 2000 that stopped that year's presidential vote recount in Florida. With scant compelling court precedent to anyone but ultra-right partisans, Kennedy thus joined in awarding the U.S. presidency (by an unprecedented court fiat enacted exclusively by Republicans) to GOP nominee George W. Bush, thus altering American history in enduring ways. 

With that background, we explore more fully below the suspicious activity between the Trump and Kennedy families in this sequel to New GOP High Court Threatens Massive Public Pain, our previous analysis of recent court decisions and the potential civic harms stemming from Kennedy's resignation.   

The Basic Suspicions

Public awareness of an unusually close relationship between the Trump and Kennedy families first arose from New York-region financial reporters more than a decade ago between Justice Kennedy's son, Justin (shown at left), and his work with real estate entities owned by Trump and the family of his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Last year, the Capitol Hill publication Politico noted a brief, chummy and seemingly innocuous semi-private exchange in 2017 between Trump and the associate justice during Trump's presidential address to Congress in February of that year. 

Kennedy's resignation last month prompted several bold reporters and commentators to revisit the multiple relationships involved and raise alarms. Meanwhile, partisans and apologists for conventional order have been quick to dismiss any concerns even though no one as yet from any viewpoint can produce definitive evidence of either corruption or innocence from what are complicated financial and personal relationships,

We examine these matters below, with an extensive appendix of relevant news reports.

Kennedy Family's Background

Justice Anthony Kennedy is a native Californian who attended Stanford University as an undergraduate and earned his law degree from Harvard. He won  confirmation to the Supreme Court on a 97-0 vote and took his seat 31 years ago.

At first glance, he would not seem likely to have developed any kind of personal relationship with the brash New York entrepreneur and celebrity-turned-politico Donald Trump before the latter's election to the presidency in 2016.

But children of the wealthy and well-connected have a way of finding each other in a country increasingly divided into the haves and have-nots. The most notable relationships arose between Kennedy's son who entered the banking business and those businesses in the Trump-Kushner circle that needed money for their far-flung and often over-extended plans.

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, whose mother has worked at a public relations company representing the Trump Organization, was one of the first to suggest the relevancy of these relationships in the context of Kennedy's resignation.

Her front-page story co-authored with Times Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak on the day of Kennedy's resignation June 28 was headlined Inside the White House’s Quiet Campaign to Create a Supreme Court Opening. Its subtitle was "President Trump singled him out for praise even while attacking other members of the Supreme Court."

The story chronicled how "The White House nominated people close to him to important judicial posts. And members of the Trump family forged personal connections." Fairly far down, their story contained this intriguing paragraph about one of Justice Kennedy's sons, Justin, a high-level executive of a Germany-based bank:

During Mr. Kennedy’s tenure, Deutsche Bank became Mr. Trump’s most important lender, dispensing well over $1 billion in loans to him for the renovation and construction of skyscrapers in New York and Chicago at a time other mainstream banks were wary of doing business with him because of his troubled business history.

That same day, on June 28, investigative reporter and public affairs commentator Wayne Madsen (shown at left) was one of the first to take suggest dark suspicions. Before getting to that we'll draw (with his permission) from his introduction of the players, which is drawn from his column Reports of Trump collusion with Gorsuch and Kennedy to pack the Supreme Court  on the Wayne Madsen Report, a subscription-only investigative site.

"There are multiple reports coming out of congressional and media circles in Washington, DC," Madsen wrote, "that Donald Trump colluded with Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch and the sons of Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy to convince Justice Kennedy to retire. Kennedy's announcement that he is retiring sent shock waves through the country, with fears that Trump's replacement will provide a solid 5-4 court majority that will help Trump roll back several fundamental constitutional rights."

More importantly, a 5-4 Republican majority on the court is seen by Trump as protecting him from any indictment or recommendation for impeachment arising from the Justice Department investigation of Trump and his associates being conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Madsen continued:

If Trump colluded with Gorsuch and Kennedy to "pack the court" in Trump's favor, that would represent impeachable offenses by both Trump and Gorsuch. The Supreme Court's independence from interference by the other two branches of the federal government — executive and legislative — is sacrosanct under the Constitution.

The 81-year old Kennedy was not only pressured to retire by his Trump-appointed court colleague, Gorsuch, but also by his son, Justin Kennedy, a personal friend of Donald Trump, Jr.

Madsen, a former Navy intelligence officer, NSA analyst and Chief Scientist at the defense contractor Computer Sciences Corp., is more familiar than most political reporters with high technology and its uses in intelligence and related fields. He continued:

Justice Kennedy also saw pressure to step down from his other son, Gregory Kennedy, a Stanford Law School classmate of Peter Thiel (shown in a file photo by Noel St. John), Donald Trump's high-tech adviser.

Thiel's Palantir Technology, which has several U.S. intelligence and law enforcement contracts — including one with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for identifying immigrants in the United States for deportation — is partnered with Gregory Kennedy's former firm, which is ominously called Disruptive Technology Advisers, LLC and which is billed as a "merchant bank" in Los Angeles.

Disruptive Technology was founded by Alexander Davis, the son of oil billionaire Marvin Davis. Marvin Davis once owned 20th Century Fox and was a partner of Marc Rich, the international sanctions buster who lived in Switzerland until his death in 2013. Gregory Kennedy is now the managing partner for Advection Growth Capital in New York that is involved in the privatization of several operations of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Gregory Kennedy also was on the Trump Administration Transition Team that evaluated personnel and policies for NASA after the Trump Team's 2016 election victory, yet another of the huge conflicts of interest in Washington politics that are presumptively legal in our system.

Kennedy Son Excused?

A day later, on June 29, MSNBC morning anchor and NBC correspondent Stephanie Ruhle (shown at right in a file photo) drew on her eight years work at the German-based Deutsche Bank to address reports that Justin Kennedy had been involved in the bank's massive loans to Trump companies more than a decade ago. "I worked I worked with Justin Kennedy," Ruhle wrote on Twitter. "I read the stories - reached out to some former colleagues for their reaction Here’s some broader context/perspective- Neither of which fit in 240 characters." 

She then published on Twitter two brief videos, Part I and Part II, that quoted three senior Deutsche bank officials (albeit not by name) as saying the younger Kennedy was not involved in the Trump loans, which reportedly totaled some $600 million. A number of reader comments argued, by contrast, that the readers were generally familiar with that kind of financing and that the story deserved far more in-depth digging.

Deutsche Bank's Little-Reported History

The Deutsche Bank relationship with the Trump companies carries several rare if not unique characteristics that could be relevant to a Supreme Court confirmation at this time:

• The huge amounts, particularly because the six-time bankrupt Trump (who still keeps his tax returns secret) was not regarded as a good credit risk;
• Illegal conduct by bank employees generating some $425 million in New York State fines and penalties for illegally laundering an estimated $10 billion via Russian, United Kingdom and other European sources; 
• Suspicions, not fully documented, that Deutsche Bank crimes included widespread money laundering money from Eastern European sources; 
• Deutsche Bank's special history, which includes acquisition of the historic Alex. Brown investment bank whose relationships through the decades (including with the affiliated firm Brown Brothers Harriman, home to Bush Family patriarch Prescott Bush) had made it a key part of the American financial elite or, as some might say, "Deep State." Alex. Brown CEO and Board Chairman A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, for example, went from running Alex. Brown and to becoming executive director of the Central Intelligence Agency in March 2001 before the 9/11 attacks.

To mention this history, much of it virtually unknown to Americans in the current run-up to the Supreme Court confirmation process, is not to suggest that any of it can be proven relevant to that process — at this point. The importance for now is merely to show that high-level banking at the Deutsche Bank and Trump levels is an elite endeavor and not at all like getting a home mortgage at a Main Street bank.

Blunt Commentary

On July 2, Jesse Kornbluth (shown at right), published on the liberal site Salon a report entitled Donald Trump, Anthony Kennedy and the “boy” at Deutsche Bank: Not just about the money. He is a well-connected editor of the cultural concierge site HeadButler.com, a frequent columnist for the Brookings Institution and a former contributing editor for Vanity Fair and New York magazines,

His column began: "There’s a tangled web linking the Trump and Kennedy families. But financial corruption isn’t the whole story."

Kornbluth, author of a book about the disgraced junk bond financier Michael Milken, bluntly described potential collusion before Kennedy's resignation and the possible consequences for the main players. Most legal commentators report about the court and its decisions from deferential academic, political or advocacy standpoints that give every benefit of the doubt to potentially sinister actions by the justices.

Instead, Kornbluth wrote:

As a way of looking at a presidency that is enamored of every possible felony — self-dealing, conflicts of interest, emoluments, collusion with foreign governments and domestic corporations — crime-breeds-crime is a reasonable way to look at any Trump-related event.

But the resignation of a Supreme Court justice? Because Trump cares so much about money, that’s been suggested. And there’s smoke: the links between Trump, Kennedy and Kennedy’s son Justin. In years past we’d call that the League of White Men, taking care of their own, behind the scenes, The Way It Is. Today we tend to call it something else: collusion....

But let’s consider the bottom line: For Donald Trump, the only real issue of interest is . . . himself. If a 4-4 Court had to rule on a difficult question — Does the president have the power to pardon himself? — it might not go well for Trump.

'Dirty Money'

Kornbluth, who once held the title of editorial director at AOL among other accomplishments, was just getting started. He continued:

What started the speculation about dirty money connecting Trump, Kennedy and his son is the revelation that Kennedy and Trump have had a longstanding relationship through their children and their children’s success. We knew about Trump’s dealings with Deutsche Bank, the only bank willing to do business with him. (It’s also, perhaps not coincidentally, the bank that seems to have the longest illegal relationship with laundered Russian money.

In January 2017, it was fined $425 million by New York regulators to settle allegations that it helped Russian investors launder as much as $10 billion through its branches in Moscow, New York and London.) But we’re just finding out about the Trump relationship with Justin Kennedy, the justice’s son, who worked at Deutsche Bank for a decade, rising to the post of Managing Director and Global Head of CMBS [Commercial mortgage-backed securities] Trading and Structuring of Deutsche Bank Securities Inc..

Reportedly, Trump personally pressed Gorsuch (right), who once clerked for Kennedy, to ask the associate justice to retire. Whether or not Trump told Gorsuch that the move was to ensure that the president would remain immune to the court upholding any moves by Mueller, Gorsuch, as a constitutional expert with experience working at the court, would have known what the request meant.

Gorsuch would have also known that by cajoling him to pressure a Supreme Court justice to retire, Trump's actions were not only unconstitutional and illegal, but also exposed himself to charges of judicial malfeasance and potential impeachment.

However, the columnist Kornbluth accepted at face value the reporting of MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle that Justin Kennedy had nothing to do with the huge Deutsche Bank loans to Trump years ago, despite several comments on Ruhle's site from readers who claimed expertise and who predicted that only an investigation could sort out the facts.

Yet Kornbluth stressed that Justin Kennedy went from Deutsche Bank to lead as a co-CEO a boutique investment company called LNR Property that provided a huge bail out to Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and his family in their ruinous investment in 666 Fifth Avenue. He cited a 2012 New York Times column:

The Kushners' purchase in 2007 of 666 Fifth Avenue for a record price of $1.8 billion is considered a classic example of reckless underwriting. The transaction was so highly leveraged that the cash flow from rents amounted to only 65 percent of the debt service.

As many real estate specialists predicted, the deal ran into trouble. Instead of rising, rents declined as the recession took hold, and new leases were scarce. In 2010, the loan was transferred to a special servicer on the assumption that a default would occur once reserve funds being used to subsidize the shortfall were bled dry.

Instead of foreclosing on the 39-story building, which stretches from 52nd Street to 53rd Street, the lenders agreed last month to reduce the principal and defer some of the interest payments on the interest-only loan and extend its maturity for two years, until February 2019.

Kornbluth cited two other writers, C'Zar Bernstein and Gabe Rusk, writing in The Medium in March 2017 about the deal:

• There was a direct business relationship between LNR and Kushner Companies at the time Justin Kennedy and Jared Kushner were both CEOs. Even the future President was aware of the deal and commented on its respective merits.
• In 2011, the year in which some of these negotiations took place, Justin Kennedy for the first time was ranked on the New York Observer’s 100 Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate at #36. Donald Trump clocked in at #12. At that time, The New York Observer was owned by Jared Kushner.

Kushner's 666 Fifth Ave.:'All-Time Stinker'

"The 666 Fifth Avenue deal," Kornbluth continued, "is generally regarded as the all-time stinker in New York commercial real estate. What did LNR see as the upside? Better question: Was there any upside? As we know, 666 Fifth Avenue went badly for the Kushners, so badly that they were scrambling for a partner. Where might one be?

These transactions, their history and their implication are far beyond the scope of one column to document, even one that draws on many others. Additionally, we can in no way summarize here the history, even the recent history, of self-dealing by Supreme Court justices, especially when the recipients of jobs and benefits are their spouses, children and cronies.

The Justice Integrity Project, among others, has attempted to do so on occasion as in the case of Clarence Thomas and his wife even after a their 2011 scandal that began this way with a report in the Los Angeles Times: Clarence Thomas failed to report wife's income, watchdog says, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (left) failed to report his wife's income from a conservative think tank on financial disclosure forms for at least five years, the watchdog group Common Cause said Friday..

But, at least up to now, the Supreme Court and other establishment institutions have protected the system from scrutiny and other accountability in the name of privacy and constitutionalism. 

Next Steps

Tonight, most of relevant public attention will focus on the identity of Trump's nominee and the political battles over confirmation. Yet those angered by the overall system and particularly by the apparent conflicts of interest by the Kennedy and Trump families might want to take the confirmation to the public with a much broader critique than simply this nominee.

We shall certainly continue to do so with our reporting at the Justice Integrity Project, a non-partisan site that opposed the confirmation of Obama's Democratic nominee Elena Kagan (right) because of her obvious conflicts, most notably in seeking to enforce as Solicitor General the Justice Department's frame-up on corruption charges of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.  

We conclude with a last quotation from Kornbluth, who had traced out financial conflicts of the Kennedy and Trump clans in his long July 2 column in Salon:

"Although there’s clearly more to this story than an 81-year-old justice who was ready to retire," he wrote, "I’m thinking Anthony Kennedy’s farewell gift to Trump isn’t just right-wing control of the Supreme Court for the rest of most of our lives. For once, it may not be about the money. The real prize here may be a gold-plated Get Out of Jail Free card."

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Trump Selection & Reaction

Washington Post, Trump picks Judge Kavanaugh for Supreme Court, Robert Costa, Robert Barnes and Felicia Sonmez​, July 9, 2018. Conservative stalwart has deep ties to the Republican establishment. Brett Kavanaugh (right), 53, served on the U.S. Court of Appeals and worked in George W. Bush’s White House before moving to the federal bench. Democrats are preparing for a prolonged confirmation showdown on Capitol Hill — determined to rally in defense Roe v. Wade and all areas of the law they fear could be ruptured by the court.

The Intercept, Chuck Schumer Warns Senate Democrats: Fight Brett Kavanaugh Or Pay the Price From the Base, Ryan Grim, July 9, 2018. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is warning Democrats in the chamber that if they don’t put up a brutal fight over the next Supreme Court justice, there will be hell to pay from the Democratic base, according to senior Senate aides briefed on Schumer’s message.

Democratic leadership’s response in the two weeks since Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement has been in stark contrast to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s firm, across-the-board rejection of any Obama nominee sent up in 2016. McConnell, flexing the power of a majority leader, announced within an hour of the news of the February 2016 death of Antonin Scalia that under no circumstances would the Senate consider a nominee before the November election.

What that fierce opposition will look like, and how broad it will be, remains to be seen, as Schumer lacks the full authority over the Senate that McConnell wielded in 2016. But as a major political party just two seats shy of a majority, Democrats are not as powerless as they sometimes let on.

Washington Post, A more conservative high court could step, not lurch, to the right, Robert Barnes​, July 9, 2018. President Trump’s nominee and fellow conservatives on the bench can achieve right-of-center goals without overturning rulings such as Roe v. Wade.

Washington Post, Kavanaugh has endorsed robust views of presidential powers, Ann E. Marimow, July 9, 2018. ​ The record of the federal appeals court judge suggests he would be more to the right than retiring Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

New York Times, Opinion: If the Supreme Court is Nakedly Political, Can It Be Just? Lee Epstein and Eric Posner, July 9, 2018. President Trump was always going to pick a conservative for the Supreme Court. The only question has been whether to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy with a “business conservative” or a “religious conservative.”

But we wonder whether a Supreme Court that has come to be rigidly divided by both ideology and party can sustain public confidence for much longer.

In the past 10 years, however, justices have hardly ever voted against the ideology of the president who appointed them. Only Justice Kennedy, named to the court by Ronald Reagan, did so with any regularity. That is why with his replacement on the court an ideologically committed Republican justice, it will become impossible to regard the court as anything but a partisan institution.

Ms. Epstein is a political scientist and law professor at Washington University. Mr. Posner is a professor at the University of Chicago Law School.

NBC News, How Kavanaugh ruled on gun control, health care, and other hot-button issues, Jessica Spitz, July 10, 2018.  Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh has written almost 300 opinions on a range of issues over his 12 years serving on the federal appellate court.·

Palmer Report, Opinion: Exposed: secret corrupt retirement deal between Anthony Kennedy and Donald Trump, Bill Palmer, July 10, 2018. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy was secretly negotiating with Donald Trump about his replacement, even as he was casting major pro-Trump votes that were out of character with his own judicial record. This comes on top of earlier revelations that Kennedy’s son played a key role at Trump’s favorite Russian money laundering bank. We’re now looking at a full blown scandal that’s getting uglier by the hour.

NBC News is now backing off from its earlier implication that Anthony Kennedy only agreed to retire if Donald Trump specifically picked Brett Kavanaugh, and is now reporting that Kennedy provided Trump with five names that would be acceptable to him. Brett Kavanaugh was the only conservative name on the list, so Kennedy would have known that Trump could only pick Kavanaugh. These negotiations reportedly began months ago. This means that Kennedy was secretly negotiating his retirement with Trump while he was casting the swing vote on issues like Trump’s Muslim Ban.

While Kennedy has sided with conservatives on fiscal issues, he’s often sided with liberals on civil rights issues like gay marriage; his vote in favor of the Muslim Ban was out of character. If Kennedy had voted against Trump on the Muslim Ban, at a time when he was negotiating with Trump over his potential replacement, it likely would have prompted the vindictive Trump to break off those negotiations. Kennedy would have known this – meaning that his final votes can be seen as fully corrupt.

If anyone were tempted to give Anthony Kennedy the benefit of the doubt about the corrupt nature of this secret deal, that goes out the window within the context of the fairly straight line that can be drawn from Kennedy to his son to Donald Trump to Russian money laundering to the Trump-Russia election rigging conspiracy. Kennedy’s legacy is clearly ruined; the only question is whether he’ll end up facing criminal charges. Follow the money.

Fox News, NBC News reporter deletes tweet claiming Trump, Kennedy were in cahoots over Kavanaugh selection, Brian Flood, July 10, 2018.  NBC News Capitol Hill reporter Leigh Ann Caldwell on Tuesday deleted a tweet that had triggered backlash, claiming President Trump and retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy were in cahoots to get Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the seat.

Caldwell initially tweeted, “On Kavanaugh pick… Kennedy and Trump/WH had been in negotiations for months over Kennedy’s replacement. Once Kennedy received assurances that it would be Kavanaugh, his former law clerk, Kennedy felt comfortable retiring, according to a source who was told of the discussion.”

"I’ve deleted this tweet," Caldwell later tweeted, "because it incorrectly implies a transactional nature in Kennedy’s replacement. I am told by a source who was not directly part of the talks that Kennedy provided Pres. Trump/ WH a list of acceptable replacements."

Kavanaugh, 53, formerly clerked for Kennedy and was elevated to the powerful federal appeals court in the District of Columbia by former President George W. Bush, under whom he had also served as a White House lawyer and staff secretary. Trump officially nominated Kavanaugh to fill Kennedy’s seat on the Supreme Court on Monday night.

Politico, How a private meeting with Kennedy helped Trump get to ‘yes’ on Kavanaugh, Christopher Cadelago, Nancy Cook and Andrew Restuccia, July 9, 2018. While he was eager to keep the suspense alive, the president was always leaning toward Kennedy’s former clerk. After Justice Anthony Kennedy told President Donald Trump he would relinquish his seat on the Supreme Court, the president emerged from his private meeting with the retiring jurist focused on one candidate to name as his successor: Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Kennedy’s former law clerk.

Trump, according to confidants and aides close to the White House, has become increasingly convinced that “the judges,” as he puts it, or his administration’s remaking of the federal judiciary in its conservative image, is central to his legacy as president. And he credits Kennedy, who spent more than a decade at the center of power on the court, for helping give him the opportunity.

Reputed Trump Supreme Court Finalists

4 Reputed SCOTUS Top Contenders

Washington Post, Trump weighs top picks for Supreme Court amid last-minute maneuvering, Robert Costa and Robert Barnes, July 9, 2018. The president is scheduled to announce the politically charged decision at 9 p.m. Monday.

SCOTUSBlog, Potential nominee profile: Judge Thomas Hardiman, a close second to Gorsuch and a shortlister again, Amy Howe, July 2, 2018. When President Donald Trump was searching for a nominee in 2017 to fill the vacancy created by the 2016 death of Antonin Scalia, he reportedly narrowed the field to two candidates: then-Judge Neil Gorsuch, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, and Judge Thomas Hardiman (right) of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.

SCOTUSblog, Potential nominee profile: Raymond Kethledge, Amy Howe, July 7, 2018. Like Thomas Hardiman, another potential nominee on the president’s shortlist, [U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals] Judge Raymond Kethledge (left) would bring educational diversity to a bench on which all of the current justices attended Ivy League law schools.

SCOTUSblog, Potential nominee profile: Brett Kavanaugh, Edith Roberts, June 28, 2018. When then-candidate Donald Trump released his first two lists of potential Supreme Court nominees in May and September of 2016, the omission of Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit drew comment. Kavanaugh had served for 10 years on a bench known as a springboard to the Supreme Court. With his impeccable academic credentials and sterling reputation in conservative political and legal circles, he seemed like an obvious choice. And his name was eventually added to the roster of possible nominees, on November 17, 2017. No one else on the president’s current list can rival Kavanaugh for Washington credentials.

SCOTUSblog, Potential nominee profile: Amy Coney Barrett, Amy Howe, July 4, 2018. In November 2017, President Donald Trump released a revised list of potential Supreme Court nominees. The November 2017 list was an expanded version of two earlier lists, announced during the 2016 presidential campaign, from which then-candidate Trump pledged, if elected, to pick a successor to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on February 13, 2016. First on the new list – because it was in alphabetical order – was Amy Coney Barrett, a Notre Dame law professor (and former Scalia clerk) who had recently been confirmed to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. She is shown at left.

Other Justice Integrity Project Coverage

Justice Integrity Project, New GOP High Court Threatens Massive Public Pain, Andrew Kreig, July 1, 2018. The resignation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy after a series of controversial pro-conservative court opinions last week prompted an explosion of commentary about whether the court is moving in sinister fashion toward radical, activist positions causing public harms unprecedented in recent American history.

Several of the court's recent holdings were by 5-4 all-Republican majorities that overcame all-Democratic minorities in ways that underscored how the court functions at times as a brute-force political operation.

This Column's Republication

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." -- Sinclair Lewis (Down With Tyranny! Motto)

Down With Tyranny! Trump's Supreme Court Seat: The Art of the Steal, Andrew Kreig, July 10, 2018. Did U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's sudden resignation June 27 stem from corrupt motives?

Other Related News Coverage

(Reverse chronological order)

July 10

SCOTUSblog, Tuesday round-up: reactions To Kavanaugh Nomination, Andrew Hamm, July 10, 2018 (with links to reports below). Amy Howe has this blog’s coverage; Mark Walsh provides a “view” from the East Room. Additional coverage comes from Nina Totenberg on NPR’s Morning Edition (podcast), Tony Mauro of The National Law Journal and David Jackson and Richard Wolf of USA Today. Commentary comes from Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire.News, who writes that “as in all reality TV, there was a clear winner in Trump’s selection process. But unlike on The Bachelorette, the rest of us are the ones who were always going to lose.”

Reporting on Kavanaugh as Washington insider comes from Richard Wolf of USA Today and Joan Biskupic of CNN. Writing for The Economist, Steven Mazie calls Kavanaugh “an unremarkable choice for a Republican president,” notwithstanding that for Trump, “who has departed from so many presidential norms, to have picked someone with close ties to the Washington, DC establishment, may seem surprising for its utter conventionality.”

At The National Law Journal, Tony Mauro lists seven of Kavanaugh’s “more notable rulings that will come into sharp focus now” as his nomination moves forward in the Senate; in a second story at The National Law Journal, Mauro, with Mike Scarcella, compiles “snippets from some of Kavanaugh’s remarks over the years” that could also attract attention. If Kavanaugh is confirmed, it “will not take long before the President’s ambition – to choose a Justice who would vote to roll back constitutional protection for women’s abortion rights – could be fulfilled or frustrated,” reports Lyle Denniston for Constitution Daily. Commentary comes from Bill Blum of Truthdig, who writes that except for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, “Trump could not have chosen a candidate who poses a greater threat to progressive values and causes.”

Reactions to the Kavanaugh nomination

In reaction to President Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, politicians and interest groups are releasing statements. SCOTUS Watch is tracking “the public statements made by United States senators about how they plan to vote.” This post tracks the statements by interest groups that we have received. We invite you to alert us (nominationstatements [at] gmail [dot] com) to any statements we have missed.

In support of the nominee:

Alliance Defending Freedom (Michael Farris, president, CEO and general counsel)
Americans United for Life (Catherine Glenn Foster, president and CEO)
Heritage Action for America (Tim Chapman, executive director)
Institute for Free Speech (Bradley Smith, chairman and founder)
March for Life (Jeanne Mancini, president)
National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action
Pacific Legal Foundation
The Catholic Association

Against or concerned about the nominee:

Anti-Defamation League (Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director)
Auburn Seminary
Bend the Arc: Jewish Action (Stosh Cotler, CEO)
Brady Campaign (Avery Gardiner, co-president)
Center for Reproductive Rights (Nancy Northup, president and CEO)
Demos (Chiraag Bains, director of legal strategies)
Everytown for Gun Safety (John Feinblatt, president)
Human Rights Campaign
Indivisible Project (Ezra Levin, co-executive director)
Lambda Legal
People for the American Way (Michael Keegan, president)
Democracy for America (Jim Dean, chair)
Freedom From Religion Foundation
Physicians for Reproductive Health (Willie Parker, board chair)

Washington Post, Winners and losers from Trump’s second search for a new justice, Amber Phillips, July 10, 2018. President Trump’s nomination process was not without controversy, and not everyone came out ahead.

The big winner of President Trump’s second Supreme Court pick is Trump himself. He seized the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy to remind the Republican Party why it needs him: He has the power to make the Supreme Court lean more reliably conservative for a generation.

The outgoing Justice Kennedy: Kavanaugh wasn’t the only former clerk of Kennedy’s on Trump’s list of potential nominees. But Kavanaugh’s addition to the list last fall, The Post reports, was seen as a way of reassuring Kennedy that he could retire while Trump was president and have a replacement he could be happy with.

George W. Bush: In one way, it’s surprising that Trump picked Kavanaugh. He spent a number of years as a top aide to President George W. Bush, and the Bush family represents a wing of the party that’s been at odds with Trump. They represented the very establishment that Trump decried on his way to winning the GOP nomination.

Russia-investigation intriguists: It’s not out of the realm of possibility that aspects of the ongoing investigation into how Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election will reach the Supreme Court. And if that happens, Kavanaugh has more relevant material in his past than your average judge for both sides to dig through.

He was a top lawyer on the Kenneth Starr investigation into Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. Kavanaugh was a big advocate of forcing Clinton to answer graphic questions about Lewinsky to try to put the president on the spot, report The Post’s Michael Kranish and Ann E. Marimow. A decade later, Kavanaugh argued in the Minnesota Law Review that criminal investigations and lawsuits against the president are “time-consuming and distracting” and ultimately don’t serve the public good. “[A] President who is concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as President,” he wrote.

July 10

JFKFacts.org, Opinion: On JFK secrecy, Brett Kavanaugh sides with the CIA, Jefferson Morley (right), July 10, 2018. The D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 on Monday that the CIA does not have to pay my court costs incurred in the long-running FOIA lawsuit Morley v. CIA. The split decision was joined by Judge Brett Kavanaugh (below left), who was nominated by President Trump later that day to serve on the the Supreme Court.

About the information I obtained via litigation, the unsigned opinion said, “the public benefit was small.” The decision made no reference to extensive coverage of Morley v . CIA in the New York Times, Fox News, San Diego Union, St. Paul Pioneer Press, CBS News in Dallas, and the New Yorker, among many other news organizations.

The Times and the U.K. Daily Mail, even published a photo, obtained by the lawsuit, of CIA officer George Joannides (show at right below receiving a lifetime award from the CIA) receiving a medal after he stonewalled JFK investigators in 1978. In the majority view, public interest in Morley v CIA is not a measure of its public benefit.

A strong dissent by Judge Karen Henderson takes a much more balanced and independent view of the case, in my view. Appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, Henderson points out that the court had previously found that I had met the standard of “public benefit” established in case law.

In a 2013 decision the court stated:

“Morley’s request had potential public value. He has proffered — and the CIA has not disputed — that Joannides served as the CIA case officer for a Cuban group, the DRE, with whose officers Oswald was in contact prior to the assassination. Travel records showing a very close match between Joannides’s and Oswald’s times in New Orleans might, for example, have (marginally) supported one of the hypotheses swirling around the assassination. In addition, this court has previously determined that Morley’s request sought information “central” to an intelligence committee’s inquiry into the performance of the CIA and other federal agencies in investigating the assassination. Under these circumstances, there was at least a modest probability that Morley’s request would generate information relevant to the assassination or later investigations.”

“In other words,” Henderson writes, “we held that Morley satisfied the public-benefit factor in this case,”

By ignoring this finding, Henderson argues, the majority opinion ultimately depends on the assertion that the CIA responded “reasonably” to my request. Yet, Henderson notes, the ruling also ignores the fact that the appellate court had ruled the agency’s initial response to my FOIA request was deficient on seven different legal points.

Henderson concludes:

“In sum, I believe the district court erred on two levels: it erred in evaluating each of the four factors individually and abused its discretion in weighing them against one another. Accordingly, this case does not call for “[d]eference piled on deference.” Maj. Op. 11. It calls for an adherence to Davy IV and our four earlier Morley opinions. Because I believe the district court ignored our mandate and misapplied our precedent, I would vacate the district court order a fifth time and remand with instructions to award Morley the attorney’s fees to which he is entitled.”

Unfortunately, the majority, meaning Kavanaugh and Trump appointee Judge Gregory Katsas, disagreed. I have 45 days to appeal.

July 9

The Hill, Former White House ethics chief requests probe into whether Jordan knew of alleged sexual abuse, Avery Anapol, July 9, 2018. Former White House ethics chief Norman Eisen, right, on Monday said that he has filed a formal ethics complaint against GOP Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) amid accusations that the lawmaker ignored sexual abuse allegations while serving as an assistant coach for the Ohio State University wrestling program.

Eisen, who served as former President Obama's ethics chief (and also as a U.S. ambassador0, said that he and Fred Wertheimer of the nonprofit watchdog group Democracy 21 filed the complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE).

Jordan, shown in a file photo, has denied the allegations, saying that if he had known about the alleged abuse, he would have acted to stop it.

Seven former wrestlers have contradicted Jordan's claims, saying that the former assistant coach knew about alleged sexual abuse by athletic doctor Richard Strauss. Strauss killed himself in 2005.

Eisen and Wertheimer's complaint seeks an OCE investigation into whether Jordan is lying about his knowledge of alleged abuse. Eisen and Wertheimer argue that if Jordan is “publicly lying about his knowledge of the matter,” he is violating House Rules and should be held accountable.

Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, radical right activist, lobbyist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, at "CPAC 2017" (Gage Skidmore photo via Flickr)

Raw Story, Clarence Thomas’ wife defends Rep. Jim Jordan — says sex abuse allegations emerged because ‘he threatens the elite,’ Elizabeth Preza, July 9, 2018.

Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, on Monday claimed that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH, right) is the target of “false accusations” stemming from his time as an assistant coach at Ohio State University because he “threatens elite” — even as a seventh former wrestler on Sunday accused the GOP representative of lying about his knowledge of sex abuse at the school.

“Jim Jordan is under attack, with false accusations, because he threatens the elite,” Thomas wrote, along with a video of Jordan emphatically denying any knowledge of sex abuse while he was a coach.

July 8

New York Times, Democrats Face Painful Choice on Supreme Court, Carl Hulse, July 8, 2018 (print edition). The Supreme Court votes by a handful of Senate Democrats from Republican states could have broad ramifications for their party, its leadership and its core voters.

New York Times, McConnell Tries to Nudge Trump Toward 2 Justice Contenders, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Martin, July 8, 2018 (print edition). Senator Mitch McConnell (right) argued that Judges Raymond M. Kethledge and Thomas M. Hardiman presented the fewest obvious obstacles to being confirmed, according to Republican officials.

While careful not to directly make the case for any would-be justice, Mr. McConnell made clear in multiple phone calls with Mr. Trump and the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, that the lengthy paper trail of another top contender, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, would pose difficulties for his confirmation.

New York Times, Trump’s Fatal Flaw to Remake Health Care: Cutting Corners, Robert Pear, July 8, 2018 (print edition). The Trump administration is on a losing streak in court cases, but the naming of a new Supreme Court justice could alter the trajectory on some of the most controversial cases.

The recent court rebukes have only increased the focus on the Supreme Court and the impact that Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s retirement could have. Beyond abortion rights, which are sure to be a focus of Senate confirmation hearings, other health care issues could be in the balance.

The court upheld the Affordable Care Act in 2012, but challenges to various provisions are still pending in lower courts. In addition, the Supreme Court is being asked to decide questions with major implications for the future of Medicaid: whether states can exclude Planned Parenthood clinics from their Medicaid programs, and whether Medicaid patients can sue states to enforce their rights under federal law.

July 7

World Crisis Radio, Opinion: Supreme Court Appointment, Webster G. Tarpley (right), July 7, 2018 (74:07 min. radio show). It is now going to be the responsibility of every person of goodwill to oppose Trump's nominee to the Supeme Court. There is now a coalition to organize a series of rallies in every state on Sunday, Aug. 26. It's hoped that the Senate vote will not have been completed by this time.

The platform: that the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution means that government shall not deprive any person of rights. This is, in other words, an economic bill of rights. That's what President Franklin D. Roosevelt articulated in his 1944 State of the Union Address. It's what the GIs were fighting for when they were crushing fascism in World War II.

President Trump in 2017 with Supreme Court Associate Justice William Kennedy, who swore onto the court his former clerk Neil Gorsuch, center

July 7

SCOTUSblog, Potential nominee profile: Raymond Kethledge, Amy Howe, July 7, 2018. Like Thomas Hardiman, another potential nominee on the president’s shortlist, [U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals] Judge Raymond Kethledge (right) would bring educational diversity to a bench on which all of the current justices attended Ivy League law schools:

He received both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Michigan. He has returned to the law school as a lecturer to teach classes on legal writing and advocacy. (While he is there, he could bump into another potential nominee on Trump’s shortlist, Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen, who has also taught there.)

During a decade on the bench, Kethledge has compiled an extensive body of opinions but has not weighed in on several high-profile and potentially divisive issues, including abortion and affirmative action. Conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt has nonetheless dubbed Kethledge “Gorsuch 2.0,” “in the mold of Antonin Scalia.”

July 5.

SCOTUSblog, Academic highlight: Nelson, Gibson and Fontana on the public’s support for the Supreme Court, Amanda Frost, July 5, 2018. Do Americans continue to support the Supreme Court in the face of frequent criticism, including hostile tweets by the president of the United States? That question is particularly important on the eve of yet another confirmation battle and at the end of a term filled with high-profile cases.

A recent NYU Law Review Symposium hosted by the Brennan Center for Justice gathered a group of experts to examine the public’s support for the Supreme Court in the face of frequent attacks.

In their contribution, Professors Michael Nelson and James Gibson surveyed a random sample of Americans to determine whether criticism erodes the Supreme Court’s legitimacy and Americans’ support of that institution. Their findings confirmed previous studies showing that the public’s support for the court is strong, and that it dips more when the court is criticized as politicized rather than for making errors of law. To their surprise, however, they found that the public’s perceptions are affected more by criticism voiced by law professors than criticism by the president of the United States.

July 4

U.S. Supreme Court Watch

New York Times, A Rift on the Right, Shown by Two Potential Court Picks, Adam Liptak (shown at right), July 4, 2018 (print edition). The fight over who should replace Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the Supreme Court is far from over, and there are still a half-dozen plausible candidates in the mix.

But the stark contrast between two of the leading contenders — Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and Judge Amy Coney Barrett — reflects the division on the right between the conservative legal establishment, which is hostile to government regulation and the administrative state, and social conservatives, who are focused on issues like abortion and religious freedom.

Other candidates, notably Judges Raymond M. Kethledge and Amul R. Thapar, both of the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, have had cordial meetings with President Trump, and a White House spokesman said Mr. Trump interviewed three more possible choices on Tuesday. See also "Facebook Ads Offer Peek at Looming Supreme Court Fight."

SCOTUSblog, Potential nominee profile: Amy Coney Barrett, Amy Howe, July 4, 2018. In November 2017, President Donald Trump released a revised list of potential Supreme Court nominees. The November 2017 list was an expanded version of two earlier lists, announced during the 2016 presidential campaign, from which then-candidate Trump pledged, if elected, to pick a successor to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on February 13, 2016. First on the new list – because it was in alphabetical order – was Amy Coney Barrett, a Notre Dame law professor (and former Scalia clerk) who had recently been confirmed to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. She is shown at right in a Notre Dame photo.

Barrett’s confirmation hearings had received considerable attention after Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee – most notably, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California – grilled her on the role of her Catholic faith in judging. Feinstein’s criticism did not stop Barrett from being confirmed, and since then there has been speculation that it may have in fact strengthened her case to fill the seat that will be vacated by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy.

The 46-year-old Barrett grew up in Metrairie, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, and attended St. Mary’s Dominican High School, a Catholic girls’ school in New Orleans. Barrett graduated magna cum laude from Rhodes College, a liberal arts college in Tennessee affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, in 1994. (Other high-profile alumni of the school include Abe Fortas, who served as a justice on the Supreme Court from 1965 to 1969 and Claudia Kennedy, the first woman to become a three-star general in the U.S. Army.) ....

Barrett then held two high-profile conservative clerkships, first with Judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, from 1997-1998 then with the late Justice Antonin Scalia, from 1998-1999. After leaving her Supreme Court clerkship, she spent a year practicing law at Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin, a prestigious Washington D.C. litigation boutique that also claims former U.S. solicitor general Seth Waxman, former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick, and two regular contributors to this blog – John Elwood and editor Edith Roberts – as alums.

Barrett was confirmed to the 7th Circuit by a vote of 55 to 43. Three Democratic senators – her home state senator, Joe Donnelly, Virginia’s Tim Kaine, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia – crossed party lines to vote for her, while two Democratic senators (Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Robert Menendez of New Jersey) did not vote.

Because Barrett has spent just eight months on the 7th Circuit, she has compiled a relatively small body of opinions, most of them fairly uncontroversial.

One case that would almost certainly draw attention if she were nominated came shortly after she took the bench: EEOC v. AutoZone, in which the federal government asked the full court of appeals to reconsider a ruling against the EEOC in its lawsuit against AutoZone, an auto parts store. The EEOC had argued that the store violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bars employees from segregating or classifying employees based on race, when it used race as a determining factor in assigning employees to different stores – for example, sending African-American employees to stores in heavily African-American neighborhoods. A three-judge panel (that did not include Barrett) ruled for AutoZone; Barrett joined four of her colleagues in voting to deny rehearing by the full court of appeals.

July 3

Washington Post, There’s no conspiracy between Trump and Kennedy. There’s just the swamp, David Litt, July 3, 2018. A surprising number of progressives are dusting off Glenn Beck-style chalkboards, connecting the dots in a web with Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s son in the center. But the search for a shadowy conspiracy surrounding the Kennedy and Trump families obscures a far greater scandal taking place right in front of us: the dangerous concentration of wealth and political power in the United States.

The theory, for the record, goes something like this: Justin Kennedy worked at Deutsche Bank. Deutsche Bank was the only Wall Street firm willing to lend money to Donald Trump. In 2017, Deutsche Bank was fined $630 million for its involvement in a Russian money-laundering scheme. After his first address to Congress, President Trump told Kennedy, “Say hello to your boy,” to which the justice replied, “Your kids have been very nice to him.” Now, the court’s swing justice is retiring, giving President Trump the chance to cement a far-right court for a generation.

The implication is that Kennedy was coerced, via bribery, blackmail or something similarly sinister, into giving up his seat before the election. But the line between cause and effect remains hazy. In a tweet that accumulated more than 35,000 likes, @ProudResister summed it up as follows: “THAT’S WAY TOO MANY ‘COINCIDENCES.’ ”

There are, it must be said, a few problems with this all-caps logic. First, coincidence does not equal conspiracy. Democrats and progressives have long stood for science, facts and rational argument. Abandoning a commitment to the truth isn’t beating Trump at his own game; it’s surrendering the field. Second, you don’t need a tortured rationale to explain Kennedy’s actions. He’s a conservative. At 82 years old, he’s ready to retire, and he’d rather be replaced by another Neil M. Gorsuch than another Sonia Sotomayor.

But there’s a third and far more important reason to look past the convoluted speculation around Kennedy and his son Justin. It distracts us from a relationship that is legal but outrageous, nonetheless.

The existence of a personal connection between a conservative Supreme Court justice and a real estate billionaire turned president seems to shock some political observers. It shouldn’t. Of course the Trumps and Kennedys know each other: Both families belong to the most exclusive circle of America’s elite. This upper-upper crust has members from across the country, but it functions as a kind of a gated community, one in which personal and professional relationships inevitably intertwine. America’s super-elite sends its kids to the same schools. They bump into each other at Davos or Aspen or the Alfalfa Club in Washington. They socialize. They do business. They donate. They raise money. They take one another’s calls.

July 2

Salon, Donald Trump, Anthony Kennedy and the “boy” at Deutsche Bank: Not just about the money, Jesse Kornbluth, July 2, 2018. Jesse Kornbluth (right) edits a cultural concierge site, HeadButler.com. He is a former Contributing Editor for Vanity Fair and New York and authored “Highly Confident: The Crime & Punishment of Michael Milken.”

There’s a tangled web linking the Trump and Kennedy families. But financial corruption isn’t the whole story.

As a way of looking at a presidency that is enamored of every possible felony -- self-dealing, conflicts of interest, emoluments, collusion with foreign governments and domestic corporations -- crime-breeds-crime is a reasonable way to look at any Trump-related event.

What started the speculation about dirty money connecting Trump, Kennedy and his son is the revelation that Kennedy and Trump have had a longstanding relationship through their children and their children’s success.

New York Times, Trump Talks to 4 Candidates as Staff Focuses on Court Pick, Michael D. Shear, July 2, 2018. President Trump said he spoke with four candidates to replace Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who is retiring (and shown at right), as the White House raced to meet the president’s deadline to announce a Supreme Court nominee in one week.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said he likely would meet with two or three other candidates before making his decision. The president has said he plans to announce his choice next Monday, kicking off a sprint to get the nominee confirmed by the fall.

“I had a very, very interesting morning,” Mr. Trump said as he met with Mark Rutte, the prime minister of the Netherlands. White House officials declined to say which potential judicial nominees Mr. Trump talked with Monday morning, but the short list of candidates is believed to include six federal appeals court judges: Thomas M. Hardiman, William H. Pryor Jr., Amul R. Thapar, Brett M. Kavanaugh, Joan L. Larsen and Amy Coney Barrett.

PoliticusUSA.com, Bush Ethics Lawyer Richard Painter Calls For Investigation If Kennedy Was Paid To Resign, Leo Vidal, July 2, 2018. Richard Painter, the former White House Ethics Attorney for President George W. Bush, has come up with a way to delay hearings for a new Supreme Court justice to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.

According to Painter (shown in a file photo), there should be no hearings on a replacement for Kennedy until there is a full and complete investigation into the circumstances surrounding Kennedy’s resignation.

In other words, if Kennedy was paid or bought off in some way by Trump or his family, then the American people need to know about it. After Kennedy’s unexpected retirement announcement several stories appeared in the media claiming financial ties between Kennedy and his two sons and Trump and his family. Some people speculated that Kennedy was bought off in some way due to these extensive and longstanding financial connections.

Late last week Painter tweeted his novel theory for why Senate hearings for Kennedy’s replacement should be delayed:

“The circumstances of Justice Kennedy’s resignation must be investigated by the Senate Judiciary Committee before any replacement is considered. The Constitution does not give Trump the power to use underhanded means to induce Supreme Court resignations.”

As Painter points out it would be both unethical and unconstitutional for a president to “induce Supreme Court resignations” by using financial remuneration of some kind.

Painter is a lifelong Republican who is now running for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota — as a Democrat. He is the subject of an in-depth article today at Salon.com which discusses in detail the transition he has gone through from being in Bush’s White House to being one of Donald Trump’s fiercest critics.

In the article Painter asks the same questions as millions of other Americans: “Trump admires dictators and authoritarians. His loyalty to Vladimir Putin is clear and he now has a bromance with Kim Jong-un. This is a truly dire situation, but the American people still seem asleep to what is really happening. Where is the outrage? How is Trump able to get away with this?”

Then he adds: “Donald Trump’s conduct is very dangerous for the United States.”

SCOTUSBlog, Potential nominee profile: Judge Thomas Hardiman, a close second to Gorsuch and a shortlister again, Amy Howe, July 2, 2018. When President Donald Trump was searching for a nominee in 2017 to fill the vacancy created by the 2016 death of Antonin Scalia, he reportedly narrowed the field to two candidates: then-Judge Neil Gorsuch, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, and Judge Thomas Hardiman (right) of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.

On January 31, 2017, Trump nominated Gorsuch, and the rest is history. But with Justice Anthony Kennedy’s announcement last week that he would step down from the Supreme Court bench, Hardiman’s name has resurfaced as a potential nominee. The 52-year-old Hardiman (who will turn 53 on July 8, the day before Trump is expected to announce his new nominee) has a solidly conservative background and a champion in the president’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, who served with Hardiman on the 3rd Circuit and has been described as “high on Hardiman.”

In some ways, Hardiman has more in common with Justice Sonia Sotomayor than with Justice Anthony Kennedy, whom he would replace: The Massachusetts-born Hardiman became the first person in his family to go to college when he went to the University of Notre Dame, and he financed his law degree at the Georgetown University Law Center by driving a taxi. (If nominated and confirmed, Hardiman would also bring educational diversity to a court on which all of the other justices attended Ivy League law schools.)

June 29

MSNBC, Justin Kennedy and Deutsche Bank Trump Loans, Part I and Part II, Stephanie Ruhle (shown at right in a file photo), June 29, 2018. "I worked I worked with Justin Kennedy," Ruhle wrote on Twitter. "I read the stories -- reached out to some former colleagues for their reaction. Here’s some broader context/perspective -- Neither of which fit in 240 characters."

New York Times, Opinion: A Better Reason to Delay Kennedy’s Replacement, Paul Schiff Berman, June 29, 2018. Mr. Berman is a professor at George Washington University Law School. Presidents under the cloud of investigation should not get to pick the judges who may preside over their cases. Almost immediately after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement on Wednesday, Senate Democrats argued that his replacement should not be confirmed until after the midterm elections this fall — a version of the same argument that Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, used to stymie President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in 2016.

This is surely a valid argument, not least because Mr. McConnell’s blatantly anti-democratic ploy stole a judicial appointment from a popularly elected president and gave it to one who lost the popular vote by millions.

But there is another reason to withhold confirmation that both Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree on: People under the cloud of investigation do not get to pick the judges who may preside over their cases. By this logic, President Trump should not be permitted to appoint a new Supreme Court justice until after the special counsel investigation is over, and we know for sure whether there is evidence of wrongdoing.

June 28

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Reports of Trump collusion with Gorsuch and Kennedy to pack the Supreme Court, Wayne Madsen, June 28, 2018 (subscription required). There are multiple reports coming out of congressional and media circles in Washington, DC that Donald Trump colluded with Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch and the sons of Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy to convince Justice Kennedy to retire. Kennedy's announcement that he is retiring sent shock waves through the country, with fears that Trump's replacement will provide a solid 5-4 court majority that will help Trump roll back several fundamental constitutional rights.

More importantly, a 5-4 Republican majority on the court is seen by Trump as protecting him from any indictment or recommendation for impeachment arising from the Justice Department investigation of Trump and his associates being conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller.

If Trump colluded with Gorsuch and Kennedy to "pack the court" in Trump's favor, that would represent impeachable offenses by both Trump and Gorsuch. The Supreme Court's independence from interference by the other two branches of the federal government -- executive and legislative -- is sacrosanct under the Constitution.

The 81-year old Kennedy was not only pressured to retire by his Trump-appointed court colleague, Gorsuch, but also by his son, Justin Kennedy, a personal friend of Donald Trump, Jr.

Justice Kennedy also saw pressure to step down from his other son, Gregory Kennedy, a Stanford Law School classmate of Peter Thiel, Donald Trump's high-tech adviser. Thiel's Palantir Technology, which has several U.S. intelligence and law enforcement contracts — including one with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for identifying immigrants in the United States for deportation — is partnered with Gregory Kennedy's former firm, which is ominously called Disruptive Technology Advisers, LLC and which is billed as a "merchant bank" in Los Angeles.

Disruptive Technology was founded by Alexander Davis, the son of oil billionaire Marvin Davis. Marvin Davis once owned 20th Century Fox and was a partner of Marc Rich, the international sanctions buster, who lived in Switzerland until his death in 2013. Gregory Kennedy is now the managing partner for Advection Growth Capital in New York that is involved in the privatization of several operations of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

New York Times, Inside the White House’s Quiet Campaign to Create a Supreme Court Opening, Adam Liptak and Maggie Haberman, June 28, 2018. President Trump singled him out for praise even while attacking other members of the Supreme Court. The White House nominated people close to him to important judicial posts. And members of the Trump family forged personal connections.

Their goal was to assure Justice Anthony M. Kennedy that his judicial legacy would be in good hands should he step down at the end of the court’s term that ended this week, as he was rumored to be considering. Allies of the White House were more blunt, warning the 81-year-old justice that time was of the essence. There was no telling, they said, what would happen if Democrats gained control of the Senate after the November elections and had the power to block the president’s choice as his successor.

There were no direct efforts to pressure or lobby Justice Kennedy to announce his resignation on Wednesday, and it was hardly the first time a president had done his best to create a court opening. “In the past half-century, presidents have repeatedly been dying to take advantage of timely vacancies,” said Laura Kalman, a historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

But in subtle and not so subtle ways, the White House waged a quiet campaign to ensure that Mr. Trump had a second opportunity in his administration’s first 18 months to fulfill one of his most important campaign promises to his conservative followers — that he would change the complexion and direction of the Supreme Court.