A pattern of sexual assault may be the upsetting item before us. The loss of reproductive rights may be assured with any conservative on the ticket. But Kavanaugh is special for the entrenched depth of his venality and corruption: his willingness to lie, torture and twist the Constitution on behalf of the powerful in his party. This is why they need him and no one else. He is the surest route to making Trump our new mad king, and rendering the Mueller investigation quaint.
We already know that Kavanaugh believes that any GOP president should be above any kind of investigation, regardless of obvious criminal behavior. But it’s worse than that. At stake in Gamble vs. US No 17-646, on the October SCOTUS docket, is the “separate sovereigns” exception to double jeopardy. “Separate sovereigns” means that even if a president issues a blanket pre-emptive pardon for, say, all his cronies (and even himself), none would escape state crime charges if they were to be applicable and brought.
An overturn of “separate sovereigns” would not just make it impossible to charge someone with a state crime if the same charge had been levied, and a jury impaneled, at a federal level. It would mean that any blanket, even pre-emptive, pardon would also sweepingly apply to any possible state charge, now or in the future.
With an overturn of “separate sovereigns,” we could become a mafia state overnight, with whole swathes of the president’s worst criminal cohorts suddenly and permanently elevated above the law. The law would exist only to serve Trump and anyone pulling his strings. We would become Russia-lite. Our *only* recourse would be elections, and a whole lot of trust in the voting mechanisms that even the Wall Street Journal warns us are vulnerable (read: certain to fall prey to) hacking attacks. (Why, again, were GOP Senators in Russia talking to Putin in on Trump’s behalf in August?)
Keep your eye on the ball, friends. Kavanaugh may well have had good reason to act as arrogantly as he did, and to feel confident enough to threaten his interviewers with “reaping the whirlwind.”