RNLA Executive Director Michael Thielen wrote today in the Daily Callerabout how Judge Brett Kavanaugh's personal experiences on and after 9/11 and his subsequent actions demonstrate his independence and his respect for the rule of law:

In response to questions from Senators Lindsay Graham and John Cornyn, Brett Kavanaugh described how he was at the White House that Tuesday morning, in the West Wing, when the second World Trade Center Tower was hit and the world realized that this was not an accident but a deliberate act of terrorism. . . . Kavanaugh recounted how . . . the focus of President George W. Bush on September 12 was that this sort of attack would not happen again, and how he was with Bush every day from 2003 to his confirmation in 2006, seeing firsthand the former president’s commitment to preventing another terrorist attack.

(This is the fourth in a series of five posts on the demonstrated bias of Democratic FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub.  The first installment is here, the second here, the third here, and the last installment will be posted in the next few days.)

Former FEC Chairman Brad Smith was the first to warn the American public, detailing the legal problems presented by Commissioner Weintraub's actions in a June 2017 blog post at the Institute for Free Speech.  According to Chairman Smith, "Federal Election Commissioner Ellen Weintraub's actions in recent months cast serious doubt on whether she can continue to credibly carry on her duties as a Commissioner.  She should recognize this predicament and do the honorable thing, which is to resign."  Chairman Smith outlined federal law that requires government officials to act without bias and documented Weintraub's violations of that legal duty.  
  
Chairman Smith also explained the corrosive effects of the anonymous AltFEC Twitter feed in 2017, before it was widely known that the AltFEC twitter feed is sponsored by Weintraub's staff.  

The second day of Judge Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing is ongoing and expected to end after 10:00 PM.  During this marathon day (fortunately for his endurance, Judge Kavanaugh has run actual marathons), Judge Kavanaugh has remained poised and engaged in substantive discussions of cases and legal theories with senators, often recalling specific citations (down to sections of opinions) without referencing his notes.  He has shown why he is extremely well-qualified to serve on the Supreme Court, as the ABA itself acknowledged.  While protestors continued to interrupt throughout the day, Democratic senators have not engaged in the indecorous grandstanding of yesterday.

You can review the hearing's event on RNLA's Twitter feed, and we will continue live-tweeting the hearing until it concludes.

Also of note, current and former RNLA women leaders submitted a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee leaders expressing support for Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation:

(This is the third in a series of five posts on the demonstrated bias of Democratic FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub.  The first installment is here, the second installment is here, and the last installments will be posted in the next few days.)

Commissioner Weintraub's Enforcement Votes Exhibit Bias Against President Trump 

Commissioner Weintraub's votes in recent enforcement matters also have raised eyebrows because she has rejected FEC General Counsel recommendations to dismiss matters and treated President Trump differently than she treated President Obama.

In a case, Matter Under Review 7244, where a complaint alleged that President Trump's Inaugural Committee incorrectly reported the addresses of a handful of donors out of many thousands of donors, errors had been corrected in amended reports.  In 2009 and 2013, the Obama Inaugural Committee filed amended reports to clear up errors, and the Commission took no enforcement action.  The Obama campaign also had taken in upwards of millions of dollars from foreign addresses, but claimed that it refunded those contributions.  In Obama cases, Weintraub voted to dismiss complaints and not even investigate.  Accordingly, the FEC General Counsel recommended dismissal of the Trump Inaugural Committee.  But Weintraub voted against dismissal.  She rejected her own General Counsel's recommendation, apparently because President Trump will face more severe enforcement than President Obama received.  

The Senate Judiciary Committee has released its witness lists for the Kavanaugh hearing starting on Tuesday. On one side are a diverse group of people including leaders of the Supreme Court Bar and the other side is John Dean. Democrats seemingly have no interest in Kavanaugh but are trying to score some sort of larger political point. As the Hill puts it:

Dean is among more than a dozen witnesses selected by Democrats on the Judiciary Committee. The former White House counsel "will speak about the abuse of executive power" during his appearance, according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the panel.

Contrast this with the Majority witness list which includes some of the greats of the Supreme Court Bar:

The Honorable Theodore B. Olson, Partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher; Former Solicitor General, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC Ms. Maureen E. Mahoney, Former Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, Washington, DCThe Honorable Paul Clement, Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP; Former Solicitor General, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC.

(This is the second in a series of five posts on the demonstrated bias of Democratic FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub.  The first installment is here, the third is here, and the next installments will be posted in the next few days.)

Commissioner Weintraub's Personal Staff Routinely Trolls President Trump and Criticizes All Things Republican

Since President Trump took office, Weintraub's personal staff has been tweeting almost daily invective about President Trump and Republicans on the Twitter account altFEC, self-described as "The unofficial Resistance team of the U.S. Federal Election Commission." "Resistance" means resistance to the Trump Administration.  Consider a few examples of the kind of deep enmity and prejudice expressed toward President Trump: 

• Gleefully: "Mr. Art Of The Deal got his ass kicked by the D.C. City Government"

• Directed at a Donald Trump tweet on legal issues likely to be addressed by the FEC:  "Once this is over, however it ends, we’re going to wonder, 'Why did we put up with this nuttiness for so long?'"

• Retweeting James Comey's criticism of President Trump on issues likely to come before the FEC:  "Thought experiment: Make a list of all the public figures in this country and around the world the current president has criticized. Ask yourself: 'Why is Putin missing from the list?' No responsible American should ever stop asking, 'Why?'" 

• Mocking Trump:  "Where are Hillary Clinton's emails? Mr. Trump said.  Oh, here's one.  [faux email from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump]  Resign, you treasonous clown." 

• Criticizing Trump:  "Oddly, as his behavior gets more erratic & overtly pro-Russian, it may actually be a sign that Trump is *not* a Russian agent. Because at a certain point – one already passed – you would think his handlers would say, 'Yo, dude, tone it down a little. You’re being too oobvious [sic].'” 

• Prejudging alleged payments by Trump to Cohen as undisclosed campaign expenditures, a matter likely to come before the FEC:  "So, the payments Trump made to Cohen to cover the #Stormy payoff included money for “a few other situations that might have been considered campaign expenses,” Giuliani tells @costareports. Why weren’t *these* expenses disclosed? https://t.co/lKJFLA1fbA" 

• Promising Trump detractors to conduct private investigations of their secret complaints.

• Exhorting cable carriers to drop Fox News -- a news channel Commissioner Weintraub concluded broke the law by hosting a Republican debate in 2016:  "Here's a question. The more people watch #FoxNews, the less well-informed they are about basic facts. Arguably, FOX is tearing at the fabric of our democracy. They have a 1st Amendment right to exist, but not to be carried by cable companies. So: Why do cable companies carry it? https://t.co/0Ttqvrl5EQ"   

Generally the first defense of any Secretary of State or chief election official caught in a scandal is to claim partisanship. And Kentucky’s Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes has quite a scandal on her hands. Secretary Grimes was a darling of MSNBC for her Senate run against Mitch McConnell a few year back. Yet, it is her day job as Secretary of State that is getting her in trouble with both sides of the aisle.

In a nine-page letter to the Kentucky State Board of Elections, State Board of Elections Executive Director Jared Dearing, wrote:

Dearing, a Democrat, said in his letter that since he took the position last year either Grimes or her assistants have asked him and Scutchfield to do things, "we have found to be inappropriate, unethical and potentially illegal."

Among those unethical things are to ignore a consent decree which required Grimes’ office to clean up Kentucky’s voter rolls:

Dearing said in his letter, which he provided to the Courier Journal on Monday, that after about 100,000 postcards were returned he was ordered to stop scanning them by Grimes' staff. He said they were told to "slow walk" the process after he and Scutchfield raised concerns about disobeying the federal court order.

On Friday Vice President Mike Pence addressed the RNLA and issued a call to action to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Vice President Pence stated:

We're going to fight to take his case all the way to confirmation. We need your help. We need your continued engagement. We need the RNLA, not just those of you who came to the lunch today, but your 6,000 members, who are leaders in your community, to get out and spread the word among your peers. Spread the word in every state in the nation. Get the word to every Senator from every state about what Judge Brett Kavanaugh brings.

He also spoke on the qualifications of Judge Kavanaugh:

Judge Kavanaugh graduated from Yale Law School, fellow in the United States Solicitor General’s office, clerked in the Third Circuit, and then he clerked for the man who he would be replacing on the Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy. He also served as Associate Counsel at the White House. And since 2006 served on what many regard as the second highest court in the land, the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. During his time on the bench, Judge Kavanaugh has been called a judges’ judge. A stunning 39 of his 48 clerks have gone on to clerk at the Supreme Court. His peers in the judiciary rightly see him as a thought leader. His opinions are cited by courts across the country on a regular basis. And the Supreme Court has endorsed Judge Kavanaugh’s opinions more than a dozen times. I think that’s worth a round of applause. And the truth is Judge Brett Kavanaugh has established a record of enormous weight and credibility on the bench. He’s written 307 opinions and they have proven not only the strength of his intellect but also you can see he has a crystal clear judicial philosophy and fidelity to the Constitution of the United States. Judge Kavanaugh has proven his support for our first freedom, religious liberty. He stood for the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms. He's always enforced the Constitution's clear and unambiguous limits on government power, upholding the separation of powers, checks and balances, the principle of federalism that’s essential to our freedom. The truth is, Judge Brett Kavanaugh supports the principles of limited government enshrined by our founders in the Constitution of the United States of America. He is a textualist and an originalist.

He thanked the RNLA for its help in the past and reminded us that President Trump's last Supreme Court nominee was a former RNLA Member, Neil Gorsuch:

The men and women in this room have been supporting judicial nominees across the board.  You and your peers across the county made our case in your states, with your peers and in the public debate. The President and I are truly grateful for everything you've done. In fact, I know you're particularly grateful that we've also nominated a number of RNLA members into positions on the courts around the country, including one who ended up serving with distinction on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, a former RNLA member by the name of Justice Neil Gorsuch. What a great guy.   In nominating Justice Gorsuch, President Trump kept his word; kept his word to appoint a justice in the mold of the late and great Justice Antonin Scalia. And frankly seeing the early days of his tenure on the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Gorsuch has already proven, already proven himself for the trust the President has placed in him, in his commitment to the Constitution and the principles of limited government that are enshrined there. President Donald Trump and I could not be more proud of Justice Gorsuch.We also cannot be more proud of the next Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

It is really important that as lawyers, RNLA members do their best to live up to the praise and fight for Judge Kavanaugh and “make the case.” Please sign our letter supporting Judge Kavanaugh here.      

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley spoke on the Senate floor(video here) to call out the Democrats' latest tactic today on Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court:

Over the past day, several of my colleagues issued statements calling for Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing to be delayed. They claim it’s because President Trump’s former lawyer recently pleaded guilty to criminal violations of campaign finance law, allegedly at President Trump’s direction. 

I’m not going to delay Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing. There’s no precedent for delaying a hearing in these circumstances. In fact, there’s clear precedent pointing the other way. . . . President Clinton was under investigation for much of his presidency and was impeached for committing perjury. But the Senate didn’t stop confirming his lifetime appointments to the bench. President Trump is not even close to being in the same legal situation as President Clinton. My colleagues’ pleas to delay the hearing ring false. I’ll tell you why. . . . 

The goal has always been the same: delay the confirmation process as much as possible and hope Democrats take over the Senate in the midterm elections. The Ranking Member’s hometown newspaper reported on this strategy recently, calling it an attempt to stall. The strategies might change, but the goal to obstruct the confirmation process remains unchanged.

The Democrats have tried to use their unreasonable demands for huge numbers of largely irrelevant documents as an excuse to delay also:  

They tried pushing for an unprecedented disclosure of Judge Kavanaugh’s executive branch documents, even though we’ve already received more pages of such documents than any previous Supreme Court nominee. And this is on top of his twelve-year judicial track record and other more relevant publicly available materials. . . . 

On a related note, we are working to make as many of the documents we receive publicly available as soon as possible. It’s common practice to receive documents as “committee confidential” until we can assure ourselves that we won’t disclose sensitive, confidential information to the public. . . .  And, of course, all my Senate colleagues are welcome to review “committee confidential” documents at their convenience. Simply get in touch with my staff. They will make sure you have full access to the range of “committee confidential” documents.

And Chairman Grassley recently noted that, contrary to liberal and Democrat complaints about the hiding of records, the majority of the records related to Judge Kavanaugh's service in President George W. Bush's White House Counsel's office are restricted from public access under the Presidential Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act.  Both Presidents Bush and Trump are working to make as many documents available to the Judiciary Committee as possible, but instead of being praised for their transparency, they are being baselessly attacked.  As of yesterday, the Committee had received 430,700 pages of documents, dwarfing the previous record of 180,000 set by Justice Gorsuch.

Chairman Grassley also confirmed that the confirmation hearing for Judge Kavanaugh will start on September 4, allowing enough time for him to be confirmed before the start of the Supreme Court term this fall.  Thanks to Chairman Grassley for standing against all the Democrats' attack and delay tactics by consistently pointing to the facts.

(This is the first in a series of five posts on the demonstrated bias of Democratic FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub.  The second is here, the third is here, and the last installments will be posted in the next few days.)

From the Department of Justice to FBI leadership to the halls of Congress to American public opinion, nobody can credibly defend the conduct of FBI investigator Peter Strozk.  His blatant and deeply personal bias against Donald Trump, the subject of his investigation, and his politicization of FBI investigations cannot be condoned.  Strozk and his girlfriend Lisa Page were properly removed from the Mueller investigation team.  Even after their removal, however, their involvement in the Clinton email investigation and the Russian meddling investigation has left both investigations tainted. 

Which brings us to other law enforcement agencies and officials whose prejudice and enmity for President Trump is as deep and even more vocal than Peter Strozk's.  Strozk was a small player, one of several line investigators, and his personal emails and opinions about Trump -- as explicit and biased as they were -- pale by comparison to mounting evidence of anti-Trump prejudice in the office of Democratic Federal Election Commission Vice Chair Ellen Weintraub -- a Commission decision maker and powerful leader of the agency who is scheduled to become agency Chair in four months.  

Commissioner Weintraub has joined the political opposition to President Trump.  Weintraub started lobbing gratuitous political volleys at President Trump soon after he was took office.  She publicly jousted with President Trump over claims of voter fraud, an issue outside the jurisdiction of the FEC.  That drew a complaint to the FEC Inspector General.  Weintraub quickly -- and lamely -- attempted to link her foray into the President's voter fraud politics to her official duties as a Commissioner, while at the same time rallying her own political support on Twitter and elsewhere, declaring that she would not be "silenced."  

But Weintraub's post hoc effort at legitimization was transparent. A single Commissioner has no authority to launch an investigation by letter to the President (or any other witness).  Her missives to the President could not possibly constitute the conduct of official FEC business because it was unauthorized and out of order.  This was confirmed when Project Veritas confronted Weintraub with actual evidence of voter fraud in New Hampshire and asked her pointedly what she intended to do about it, butWeintraub suddenly claimed she could not comment publicly on the issue.  She has done nothing since that time to prioritize the issue.  Letters loudly jousting with the President took priority, but serious, official action can wait and must remain hush-hush.       

Weintraub also published a mean-spirited diatribe against the President's legal counselin a Washington Post op-ed at the beginning of the administration.  That's far afield from the business of the FEC, and its terms were so personal and nasty that Weintraub's hatred for the Trump campaign and its lawyer were on full display.  

All this political jousting indicates one thing: that Commissioner Weintraub started off with a clear bias against Donald Trump, his lawyer, and his administration.