sundin13 said:
There was until '96 and you can't retroactively apply stricter laws. That said, I don't think that is a defense of anything in this case, especially given the fact that it would implicate him in further crimes of perjury. |
Everybody keeps talking about crimes, guilt, innocence. It's a job interview. Hell it's not even that. It's an interview for a promotion. He already has a lifetime appointment to a court, this is about a lifetime appointment to a higher court, the highest possible. Perjury is the only possible crime to prosecute him for here, and that's not terribly likely as most of the times he may have perjured himself could be written off as simply being wrong, not lying. Regardless of your opinion on the guy, you should be thinking about his impact on the court, not the confirmation process impact on his life or the midterm election or the parties. We're talking about the Supreme Court here, the final arbiter of all laws and legal disputes. The most foundational pillar of the rule of law beyond the constitution itself.
Regardless of "the truth", his confirmation would damage the court at this point, especially if enough information came out to warrant his impeachment later. It's not about "due process" at all, and it's certainly not about one man's career, which would be fine regardless of how the confirmation vote goes. It's about protecting a sacred institution of our democracy. It's not like there aren't options. Trump has a big list of them, and all are great for Republicans and bad for Democrats.
People say that Dems are going to start accusing Rep nominees of sexual crimes every time, but they didn't do it for Gorsuch, and if somehow they started doing it every time from now on, it won't work, both because they won't be able to find accusers every time and because it won't always be believable, especially for the female candidates, however unfair you may feel that is. If the Dems actually tried such an absurd strategy with every Republican candidate, the public would stop believing them and Reps would be able to confirm their nominee without hurting the court because everyone would stop believing the Dems. Similarly, if Lindsey Graham follows through with his threat and comes up with fake sex crime accusations for every future Dem nominee or whatever he's implying, Dems might have to withdraw their first candidate if he makes a convincing case, but eventually it won't work as everyone will stop believing him. There's just no need to endanger the court's reputation like this when there are other options, some of which, quite frankly, are more conservative than Kavanaugh, if that's all they care about.
