Brett Kavanaugh, Russian asset Donald Trump's pick to join the nation's highest court of law, has some problematic views on executive power. Those views are made even more problematic given the current executive, who just happens to be under criminal investigation for possible conspiracy with a foreign adversary in the 2016 election.
Joan McCarter at Daily Kos:
Brett Kavanaugh, Russian asset Donald Trump's pick to join the nation's highest court of law, has some problematic views on executive power. Those views are made even more problematic given the current executive, who just happens to be under criminal investigation for possible conspiracy with a foreign adversary in the 2016 election. And those problems just ratcheted up with video dug up by CNN of an appearance by Kavanaugh at the American Enterprise Institute in March, 2016.
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What's Morrison v. Olson? It was a Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of provisions creating an independent counsel under the 1978 Ethics in Government Act. The independent counsel law expired in 1999 and was replaced by the somewhat weaker Justice Department's special counsel regulation. That's what Robert Mueller is now operating under. But Kavanaugh wants to put the "final nail" in it, ending any possibility of Congress's power to investigate the president. Which is kind of interesting, since Kavanaugh was on Ken Starr's team that hounded then-President Bill Clinton with a broad array of conspiracy theories. Since then, Kavanaugh has changed his tune, because now he believes a president should be beyond Congress's reach.
