Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, a long and arduous process is finally drawing to a close. In the next couple of days, we will vote on Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. I will be voting yes.

Last week, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about an allegation she made about Judge Kavanaugh. Dr. Ford deserved to be heard, and she was. Her claims deserved to be investigated, and they were, thoroughly, by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Then they were investigated again by the FBI.

Here is what we have learned after seven FBI background investigations, more than 2 weeks of committee investigations, and a day-long hearing in which both sides were heard: There is not one scrap of corroborating evidence to back up her claims against Judge Kavanaugh.

Person after person after person has given testimony of Judge Kavanaugh's good character, both in high school and in his adult life. Sixty-five women who knew Judge Kavanaugh in high school sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee noting that he always treated women with ``decency and respect.''

It has become clear that for many of my Democratic colleagues, zero evidence was never going to be enough. Innocent until proven guilty doesn't seem to be a concept that my Democratic colleagues understand. Instead, my Democratic colleagues seem to be putting forth a new standard: Guilty no matter what, even with evidence to the contrary, which is scary because innocent until proven guilty is a pretty foundational principle of our system of government, and it is a powerful safeguard against destroying the lives of innocent people with false accusations.

The truth is, to many of our Democratic colleagues, Judge Kavanaugh has been guilty since the moment he was nominated. He is guilty of being a Republican. He is guilty of being nominated by a Republican President. He is guilty of pledging his allegiance to the law instead of to Democrats' preferred judicial outcomes. So any means of defeating him became fair game, no matter how unjust, no matter how outlandish.

Dr. Ford certainly deserved to have her claims heard and investigated, but Democrats didn't stop there. They gave credence to almost every accusation that was thrown out, no matter how ridiculous or uncorroborated. It didn't matter if no less a paper than the New York Times had declined to publish an accusation for lack of any corroboration. If it would slow down Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation, they grabbed onto it.

At least one Democratic Senator suggested that we needed an FBI investigation because Judge Kavanaugh had thrown ice at someone in college. Apparently, throwing ice in college is now grounds for an FBI investigation. What is next--an FBI investigation because Judge Kavanaugh stole another kid's toy in preschool or because he didn't share his swing on the playground during recess?

The confirmation process for Judge Kavanaugh has gotten particularly ugly in the last couple of weeks, but the truth is, it was ugly from the beginning. Long before Dr. Ford had made any accusations, one Democratic Senator on the Judiciary Committee said that those who supported Judge Kavanaugh would be complicit in evil.

For starters, let's point out that Judge Kavanaugh is a mainstream judge. During his time on the DC Circuit, Judge Kavanaugh's Democrat- appointed colleagues have been just as likely to join his majority opinions as his Republican-appointed colleagues.

Judge Kavanaugh has won admiration from across the political spectrum for his intellect, his fairness, and his dedication to the law.

Former Obama Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal noted this about Judge Kavanaugh:

I think it's very hard for anyone who's worked with him, appeared before him, to, frankly, say a bad word about him.

In my practice we basically have a rule: If there's a Kavanaugh clerk who applies, we hire that person.

Thirty-four of Judge Kavanaugh's law clerks wrote a letter on his nomination which said, in part:

Our views on politics, on many of the important legal issues faced by the Supreme Court, and on judicial philosophy, are diverse. Our ranks include Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. But we are united in this: Our admiration and fondness for Judge Kavanaugh run deep. For each of us . . . it was a tremendous stroke of luck to work for and be mentored by a person of his strength of character, generosity of spirit, intellectual capacity, and unwavering care for his family, friends, colleagues, and us, his law clerks.

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan--certainly not someone Democrats think of as either evil or an extremist--hired Judge Kavanaugh to teach at Harvard Law School, where he has served as the Williston Lecturer on Law.

Both inside and outside his profession, those who know him praise his character.

Eighty-four women who worked with him in the Bush administration sent a letter praising him as ``a man of the highest integrity.''

A self-described liberal Democrat and feminist lawyer who knows Judge Kavanaugh and knows him well wrote the following in an op-ed for Politico:

My standard is whether the nominee is unquestionably well- qualified, brilliant, has integrity, and is within the mainstream of legal thought. Kavanaugh easily meets those criteria.

Just as a Democratic nominee with similar credentials and mainstream legal views deserves to be confirmed, so, too, does Kavanaugh--not because he will come out the way I want in each case and even most cases, but because he will do the job with dignity, intelligence, empathy, and integrity.

That is from a liberal lawyer. This is the man that the junior Democrat from New Jersey said it would be ``evil'' to support.

I frequently disagree with my Democratic colleagues on policy issues, oftentimes quite strongly, but I don't go around calling my colleagues ``evil'' because we disagree. I know that word should be reserved for people who have truly malicious motivations or who have done truly terrible things--not people who, like me, want to do what is best for our country but have different opinions about how to get there.

What kind of an example does the Senator from New Jersey's rhetoric set for our children--that civil disagreement is impossible; that anyone whose opinion differs from our own should not be tolerated; that our fellow Americans are not just our political opponents but our enemies?

Democrats like to accuse the President of using irresponsible rhetoric. I might suggest they take a long hard look in the mirror.

But it is not just the Democrats' rhetoric that has been extreme and irresponsible throughout this process, so has their handling of Dr. Ford's allegation. The ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the senior Senator from California, sat on Dr. Ford's allegation for 6 weeks without sharing the allegation with Republicans.

During that time, she never once questioned Judge Kavanaugh about the accusation, despite having multiple chances to do so, both in public and in private. If the ranking member thought this accusation was credible, she had an absolute responsibility to disclose it to the committee or to the FBI immediately. She also had an obligation to ask Judge Kavanaugh about it. She did neither.

If, on the other hand, she thought it was false--which is the only excuse for her silence--then the Democrats' decision to exploit this accusation for political gain is appalling. In either case, Democrats have behaved with a total lack of responsibility throughout this process.

Not only have they shown not the slightest concern about the possibility of tarnishing a good man's name, they also displayed no real concern for Dr. Ford. Clearly, they had no particular interest in giving her or her allegation a hearing until it became politically expedient to do so. If they had really cared about her accusation, they would have brought it up immediately and questioned Judge Kavanaugh about it immediately. Instead, they held it in reserve, apparently to be deployed in the event that they needed it to delay the confirmation process.

It is shameful but not surprising. As I said earlier, Democrats made clear from the beginning that they would do anything they could to defeat Judge Kavanaugh's nomination. Throughout this process, they have grasped any straw that appeared: too few documents, too many documents, an unrelated investigation, outlandish accusations.

Then, after last week's hearing, when it became clear there was no evidence against Judge Kavanaugh, they jumped on his demeanor at the hearing. Now he was unqualified because he passionately defended his good name in front of the committee. Apparently, it is not OK to be angry when your good name has been dragged through the mud and your family has been threatened.

Today, of course, now that we have gotten the results of the FBI investigation, which Democrats requested, by the way, Democrats are now saying that Judge Kavanaugh shouldn't be confirmed because the FBI investigation wasn't long enough or thorough enough.

I would like to ask: Does anyone here think there is any FBI investigation that would have satisfied my Democratic colleagues? After all, we know Democrats have been opposed to Judge Kavanaugh from the very beginning. A number of them announced their opposition before the ink was even dry on his nomination. Are we really supposed to believe they were going to change their minds after yet another FBI investigation?

Despite the well-coordinated intimidation tactics of the far left, we are moving forward. We are about to vote on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination, as we should be. But I can't help but reflect on the process of getting here.

I would like to ask my Democratic colleagues if this is what they think the process should look like going forward. Do they really think that Supreme Court confirmations should be characterized by intense partisanship and unsubstantiated character attacks? Do they really want to do away with the presumption of innocence and allow innuendo--the substitute for evidence? Do they really think it is OK to stop at nothing to tank a nomination?

Tomorrow and Saturday, I will be casting my vote for Judge Kavanaugh. I will be voting for him because he is supremely qualified. We all know that. The Democrats know that. I will be voting for him because he is a man of character and integrity, and I will be voting for him because I know that he can be relied on to uphold the rule of law and the Constitution. I invite not just my Republican but my independent- thinking Democratic colleagues to join me. It is not too late to say no to the politics of personal destruction. It is not too late to say no to unchecked partisanship. It is not too late to put this eminently qualified nominee on the Supreme Court.

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