Republicans have ramped up their whining in recent weeks, first after Democrats exposed documents related to Brett Kavanaugh‘s past, and now after a woman has come forward claiming Trump‘s Supreme Court pick tried to rape her in high school.
As PolitucusUSA noted a short time ago, both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Ford, will “testify publicly before a Senate panel” next Monday, jeopardizing Thursday’s scheduled committee vote and his confirmation altogether.
But instead of being concerned about the disturbing and credible allegations against Kavanaugh, Republicans are angry about the timing. They’re super bummed that they didn’t sneak their Supreme Court nominee through Congress fast enough to avoid all this.
And who’s at fault, according to the GOP? Democrats and the woman who claims she was violated by Kavanaugh.
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Sen. Orrin Hatch said, “I remain deeply disappointed by the way Senate Democrats have so grossly mishandled these accusations thus far.”
Note to the Utah Senator, who is spending his last few years in Congress being a shameless Trump hack: You should probably be more concerned about the allegations that your president’s SCOTUS pick allegedly tried to rape a woman, not about when that information came out.
Still, Hatch doubled down on Monday by attacking Kavanaugh‘s accuser, saying she is “mixed up†about her claims. Hatch says he believes Kavanaugh.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, chimed in complain about the timing, too.
“Unfortunately, committee Republicans have only known this person’s identity from news reports for less than 24 hours and known about her allegations for less than a week,” Grassley said, according to NBC News. “Senator Feinstein, on the other hand, has had this information for many weeks and deprived her colleagues of the information necessary to do our jobs.”
Republicans complaining about not providing the necessary information to thoroughly vet a Supreme Court nominee? Give us all a break.
And of course, Mitch McConnell, the architect of the operation that hijacked the SCOTUS confirmation process when Obama was president, said this with a straight face, according to RollCall: “Now an accusation of 36-year-old misconduct dating back to high school has been brought forward at the last minute in an irregular manner.”
Hearing the Kentucky senator lecture us on irregular Senate behavior is particularly rich.
Republicans lost their right to complain about the SCOTUS nomination process
In the case of Brett Kavanaugh, Democrats are fulfilling their responsibility of thoroughly vetting anyone who wants to sit on the United States Supreme Court for the rest of their life.
Republicans may not like the fact that it’s exposing their nominee as, at best, a right-wing extremist and, at worst, an alleged sexual predator, but that’s too bad.
When they took it upon themselves to blow up the SCOTUS nomination process with nearly a year left in Barack Obama’s term, they lost their right to whine.
That goes without mentioning the fact that Obama’s court pick, Merrick Garland, had a sterling record – and Republicans still denied him a hearing.
Now, when an alleged rapist is on the brink of being confirmed, they’re whining that Democrats aren’t fast-tracking the entire process and crowning him with a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land.
Forgive us all for not giving a damn.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
