Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I would like to talk this morning about the President's qualified nominee for the Supreme Court. A number of us have already met with Judge Kavanaugh. Four Senators from both sides of the aisle have meetings scheduled. By all accounts, including my own, he is a fair and thoughtful jurist with a brilliant legal mind, but some Senators have a different view than their colleagues and different from the experts.

Here is how the junior Senator from New Jersey characterized this nomination with the senior Senator from Massachusetts right beside him. Here is what he said:

We are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

You are either complicit in the evil, you are either contributing to the wrong, or you are fighting against it.

This is from a member of the Judiciary Committee. He hasn't even met with Judge Kavanaugh. He hasn't heard a word of testimony, and he is citing Scripture. He is proclaiming that this nominee is pure evil of Biblical proportions. He is claiming that the Senators and the American people who have an open mind on this nomination are complicit in the evil. This is truly outrageous.

Not a single Democrat has come forward to condemn what he had to say. Our friends on the left are locked in this bizarre competition to wear out the volume knob and outdo each other with this angry nonsense.

Before the President even selected Judge Kavanaugh, the junior Senator from California, another member of the Judiciary Committee, declared that whoever he nominated would bring about ``the destruction of the Constitution of the United States.'' She made up her mind before any hearings or any testimony and before there was even a nominee, in fact.

Less than 24 hours after Judge Kavanaugh was announced, the senior Senator from Connecticut followed suit. He said: ``Judge Kavanaugh is your worst nightmare.'' This is another member of the Judiciary Committee.

So for those keeping score at home, Democrats want you to believe that Judge Kavanaugh is your worst nightmare, who will put the American people in the valley of the shadow of death and destroy the Constitution all by himself. Oh, and don't forget that anyone who doesn't agree with them is ``complicit in evil.''

Whom do they expect to believe this stuff?

Here is another quote: ``This is a nominee who wants to pave the path to tyranny.'' That was our colleague, the junior Senator from Oregon, at a rally with far-left special interests.

Here is another quote: ``The nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh will threaten the lives of millions of Americans for decades to come.'' That was a quote of the former Democratic Governor of Virginia, who actually used to chair the Democratic National Committee.

It is hard to keep a straight face when you hear this hysteria. Really, you can't keep a straight face at all when our Democratic colleagues say these things and then turn around and insist they need extra time, extra information, and extra documents in order to make up their minds.

Do the people making these comments sound like they are openminded? Do they sound persuadable?

The Democratic leader has insisted that Judge Kavanaugh's long and extensive judicial record isn't enough and that Democrats need to see practically every scrap of paper from the Bush White House before they can decide. But about 2 weeks ago, when the ink was barely dry on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination, he himself told a national television audience--this is the Democratic leader--that he will ``oppose him with everything I've got.'' That doesn't sound undecided to me. It doesn't sound like a guy who needs documents to make up his mind.

Let's be clear about what this is all about. Judge Kavanaugh has been a judge for over a decade. He has written over 300 opinions. He just produced over 6,000 pages of documents as part of his questionnaire, and many more documents will be produced in the coming weeks. In fact, it is likely that more documents will be produced with respect to his nomination than for any Supreme Court nomination in our entire history.

But it is becoming pretty clear that none of this will really matter. I am sorry to say that for most Senate Democrats, I am afraid it would not matter if there were a million pages of documents or 10 million or 100 million. It wouldn't make any difference. No matter how many documents are produced, many of our Democratic colleagues are making it abundantly clear that they are never going to support this nominee.

The complaint about documents is not about assessing his record in an openminded, fair, and dispassionate way. It is all about the desire to obstruct and delay. The American people will give this demagoguery and these delaying tactics the short shrift they deserve.

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