CBS NEWS July 9, 2018, 9:30 PM
President Trump announced Monday evening that he is nominating Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court seat being vacated by retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. He said of Kavanaugh that he has “impeccable credentials and unsurpassed qualifications, and a proven commitment to equal justice under the law” and referred to him as a “judge’s judge.”
Kavanaugh, in accepting the nomination, talked briefly about the role of judges. “My judicial philosophy is straightforward,” he said. “A judge must be independent and must interpret the law, not make the law. A judge must interpret statutes as written. And a judge must interpret the Constitution as written, informed by history and tradition and precedent.”
Kavanaugh, who clerked for Kennedy, is a well-known conservative jurist who has served on the D.C. Appeals Court since 2006. A graduate of Yale and then Yale Law, Kavanaugh went to work for independent counsel Ken Starr after his time with Kennedy, and assisted with Starr’s investigations into President Bill Clinton. He was also the lead author of the Starr Report, which famously recounted Clinton’s extramarital affairs in sometimes lurid detail.
The 53-year-old Kavanaugh’s long march through conservative legal circles was not without its setbacks. After leading the investigation into the suicide of Clinton lawyer Vince Foster, Kavanaugh lost his one and only case before the Supreme Court in 1995 in an attempt to get access to notes exchanged between Foster and his attorney.
In 2000, Kavanaugh unsuccessfully attempted to prevent 6-year-old refugee Elian Gonzalez from being returned to Cuba. But later that year, he worked for then-Republican nominee George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore, which ended the Florida recount after the 2000 presidential election.
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