What did Donald Trump know about Brett Kavanaugh?
In Michael Wolff’s new book, Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency, Donald Trump rails on all three of his Supreme Court picks. That’s not too surprising, given that they didn’t magically overturn the election and transform Biden’s inauguration into a Trump coronation. However, Trump’s criticism of Brett Kavanaugh is revealing and could spell legal trouble for Kavanaugh nearly three years into his undeserved tenure.
“Where would he be without me? I saved his life,” Trump ranted, according to an excerpt obtained by Axios. “He wouldn’t even be in a law firm. Who would have had him? Nobody. Totally disgraced. Only I saved him.” Trump isn’t just venting here. Trump is clearly suggesting what many people have long thought—that there’s much more to the Kavanaugh story that was never properly investigated.
Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner believes that Trump’s statement constitutes new evidence for a formal Justice Department investigation into Kavanaugh. “What in the world did Donald Trump know about Brett Kavanaugh?” Kirschner wondered aloud in a recent video. “What did he learn during the nomination process that made it clear to Donald Trump that Kavanaugh was disgraced?”
Indeed, Trump’s statement was not some random vengeful utterance. Given the abbreviated sexual assault investigations, Kavanaugh’s mysteriously vanishing debt, and his seemingly perjurious testimony during his Senate confirmation hearing, Trump’s statement fits into a larger context that must no longer be ignored.
The Justice Department has its hands full now, thanks to a historically corrupt former guy, but investigating Kavanaugh shouldn’t require enormous resources. As Kirschner pointed out, the FBI can easily interview Kavanaugh’s friends (“boys”) to corroborate Kavanaugh’s explanation of his evaporating debt: “Did you happen to give Brett Kavanaugh $200,000 in cash for baseball tickets? No? Hmm! Well, that’s interesting.”
It’s not too late to launch a formal investigation into Kavanaugh. Also, the fact there is a new administration is legally irrelevant because, as Kirschner pointed out, “there is no grandfather clause.” Kirschner then summed it up perfectly. “All of that has to be investigated, not as political payback, not as retribution, not as election revenge, but because it’s the right thing to do… because justice matters.”
Ron Leshnower is a lawyer and the author of several books, including President Trump’s Month