Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words is a great movie. I saw it this weekend and came away with three thoughts, none of which are on his legal philosophy, which is just touched on in the movie. But two of them are very relevant for today.

Many experts have concluded last night’s CNN Democratic Presidential debate was won by Mayor Pete Buttigieg.  Moreover many “conservatives” liked Mayor Pete.  However, on the issue that RNLA has been tracking- the candidate’s positions on judicial nominees and court packing- Mayor Pete was again a trainwreck last night. His position last night:

Now, I'm not talking about packing the court just with people who agree with me, although I certainly will appoint people who share my values, for example, the idea that women's reproductive freedom is an American right.

What I'm talking about is reforms that will depoliticize the court. We can't go on like this, where every single time there is a vacancy, we have this apocalyptic ideological firefight over what to do next.

Now, one way to fix this would be to have a 15-member court where five of the members can only be appointed by unanimous agreement of the other 10. 

2019 Republican Lawyer of the Year, former FEC Chair, and RNLA Board of Governors member Lee Goodman appeared on CNBC earlier this week to discuss the unsuccessful effort by the Biden campaign to have Facebook remove a Trump campaign ad it claimed was inaccurate.  Mr. Goodman summarized the law applicable to campaign ads:

It does not take a deep dive into the facts to determine that the Democrats' partisan impeachment case is on very shaky ground.  Actually, looking at the facts objectively from what we know from the Ukrainian perspective seems to show that former Vice President Biden, not President Trump, is the one whose activities should be receiving further scrutiny.

According to Webster’s a quid pro quo is "something given or received for something else."  Democrats allege Trump wanted dirt on Biden in return for foreign aid.  However, according to the New York Times reporter Ken Vogel: “The Ukrainians weren't made aware that the assistance was being delayed/reviewed until more than one month after the call."

As Nancy Pelosi pushes House Democrats toward impeachment, we thought we would gather some reactions and responses from all sides of the spectrum that you may have missed.  But first off, we have to commend the President who has called for the release of the transcripts of his conversation with Ukraine President Zelensky and Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans who “hotlined” and voted unanimously to pass a resolution to provide the whistleblower complaint to Congress. 

Trump is releasing the transcript.

McConnell moving the complaint to Senate intel.

You want transparency & the facts? You got it.

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) September 24, 2019

This is another installment of an ongoing series of posts summarizing 2020 Democratic presidential candidates' views on judges and the courts.  All posts in this series can be viewed here.

On Neil Gorsuch:

• In a March 28, 2018 interview on podcast, “Pod Save America,” Biden stated “I would work like the devil if I were in the Senate, if we had a Democratic Senate, to keep [another] Gorsuch from going on the court again. The single most damaging thing thus far, short of what may happen to our foreign policy, to all the things I care about, was Gorsuch going to the court.”^[1]

On Brett Kavanaugh:

• In a written statement on the September 29, 2018 hearings of Brett Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Biden wrote, “What we witnessed yesterday from the Republican Judiciary Committee members was a degree of invective, blind rage and brute partisanship that threatens not only the Senate and the Supreme Court — it threatens the basic faith in fairness and justice that binds this country together.”^[2]
• Biden voted “No” for Brett Kavanaugh’s DC Circuit Court confirmation on May 26, 2006.[3]

His opposition to Trump’s judicial nominees:

• Of all of President Trump’s appointees to the Court of Appeals, only one was a district court judge who had a roll call vote when Biden was a Senator.  Biden voted ‘Yes.’[4]
• Of all the current district court judges appointed by President Trump, Joe Biden prevented one from becoming a judge by not offering timely senatorial “blue slip” approval of a candidate from Delaware.[5]

Joe Biden's announcement that he is running for President was unique in that the prelude included several apologies or near apologies for his behavior toward women.  Among those apologies was one to Anita Hill, who falsely accused Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.  As former Associate White House Counsel Mark Paoletta wrote a few years back when the Hill-Thomas subject was being brought up in relation to the Bill Cosby and Roger Ailes matters:

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee began its public consideration of William Barr, President Trump’s nominee for attorney general. Senate Judiciary Democrats tried and failed to trip up Mr. Barr, who was professional, calm, and lawyerly throughout the hearing.  He frequently declared that he would be an independent attorney general committed to the rule of law and the Constitution, as he was when he served as President George H.W. Bush's attorney general.  The RNLA live-tweeted the hearing.

Here's a look back at what happened the last time the Senate considered him for the same job.

In 1991, then-Senate Judiciary Chairman and potential 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden praised William Barr, President Trump's nominee to be attorney general.  After the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously voted in favor of him and shortly before the Senate unanimously confirmed him by voice vote to be attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, Chairman Biden said: