Justice Kennedy Asked Trump To Put Brett Kavanaugh On The Supreme Court, New Book Says
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation was a bruising and dramatic partisan battle, with Christine Blasey Ford accusing Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were in high school more than 30 years ago.
In meticulous detail, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus’ new book “Supreme Ambition: Brett Kavanaugh and the Conservative Takeover” describes how Kavanaugh ended up as the nominee when Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, and how Republicans have been working on getting a conservative majority on the court for decades.
In 2016, then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pulled an unprecedented move: He assured potential voters with a list of conservatives he would nominate to the Supreme Court if elected president, Marcus says. Brett Kavanaugh’s name was nowhere to be found on this initial list of nominees nor on a second list released later on in 2016.
“This didn’t seem to be a big deal if you were Brett Kavanaugh, because it wasn’t very likely after all, that candidate Trump was going to become President Trump,” Marcus says.
But because of massive support from major figures in Washington — from former President George W. Bush and Justice Kennedy — an
