New Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh returned to the White House for a televised appearance tonight with President Donald Trump less than a month before pivotal congressional elections.
Kavanaugh took part in an entirely ceremonial swearing-in two days after he officially became a member of the high court and following a bitter partisan fight over his nomination. Only Samuel Alito and Stephen Breyer participated in a White House event after they had been sworn-in and begun work as a justice, according to the court’s records on oath-taking by the current crop of justices.
Kavanaugh, along with his law clerks, already has been at the Supreme Court preparing for his first day on the bench Tuesday when the justices will hear arguments in two cases about longer prison terms for repeat offenders. The new justice’s four clerks all are women, the first time that has happened.
The clerks are Kim Jackson, who previously worked for Kavanaugh on the federal appeals court in Washington, Shannon Grammel, Megan Lacy and Sara Nommensen. The latter three all worked for other Republican-nominated judges. Lacy had been working at the White House in support of Kavanaugh’s nomination.
In his Senate testimony last month in which he denied allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman in high school, accusing Democrats of orchestrating a partisan campaign against him, Kavanaugh had promised that, if he was confirmed, the four clerks working for him would be women.
“I’ll be the first justice in the history of the Supreme Court to have a group of all-women law clerks. That is who I am.”
On Monday, Trump kept up attacks on Democrats for opposing Kavanaugh, pressing on an issue that Republicans have used to energize their voters.
Kavanaugh was “caught up in a hoax that was set up by the Democrats,” Trump said as he left the White House for a trip to Florida.