There's a few possible reasons why the Republican-controlled Senate is so insistent on ramming through the Trump nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in as short a time as possible. The dominant theory has been that they need to schedule a vote on Kavanaugh before the contents of some of his papers can be forced into the public. In his role in the Bush White House, Kavanaugh would have been in the midst of discussions on torture and indefinite detention; the involvement of the next Supreme Court Justice in international war crimes would be a bad look.
But is that really the reason for the Republican Senate's fevered urgency? That scenario draws skepticism, if only because there seems to be little immediate danger that Republicans or the Trump White House in particular will release any of those papers, regardless of demands to the contrary.
What is more urgent, however, is the investigation into whether the current Republican president committed crimes prior to or while in office. To say that it is existential, for both the Republican White House and every last Republican senator, is not overstating the case. A probe into whether the Republican presidential campaign willingly coordinated with a Russian espionage effort aimed at throwing the United States presidential elections is ongoing, and has already resulted in numerous indictments. The "president's" longtime personal fixer has pled guilty to federal election crimes—and stated directly, in his plea, that the now-president himself assisted and directed those crimes.
We now know with near-certainty that the Republican candidate committed crimes in his efforts to gain the presidency—and the Republican House and Senate have been publicly frantic in their efforts to block further information of those crimes from coming out.
Brett Kavanaugh is unique among the potential Supreme Court nominees in that he transformed from a partisan investigator serving in the Ken Starr probe of anything and everything related to Bill Clinton to a new George W. Bush-convenient belief that sitting presidents ought not be investigated for crimes at all. If appointed to the court, it is logical to presume that he will bring this new, innovative premise to the Supreme Court itself.
And that, perhaps, explains why the Republican Party is rushing pell-mell to confirm Kavanaugh with a sense of seemingly frantic urgency rather than slowing the process by even a few more weeks.
The abortion debate may be fiery, but it is not urgent. Further loosening restrictions on campaign contributions or curbing environmental protections may be party goals, but they are not urgent. Each of these tasks would not be set back by much if Brett Kavanaugh appeared a few weeks into the court's next session, rather than unpacking his boxes on Day One.
Blocking the criminal probes into the Republican president, however, is an immediate, urgent need. It cannot wait. The White House defenses are unraveling; federal prosecutors have now gained the cooperation of multiple onetime members of Trump's inner circle and the president stands himself accused by co-conspirators of federal crimes. According to worried Republican bystanders, the probe into the Trump campaign's interactions with agents of the Russian government is allegedly very, very close to completion.
And there is no remaining way to block these multiple investigations other than changing the law of the land to grant Trump and his Republican allies immunity—which is, precisely, Brett Kavanaugh's public legal opinion. Any presidential effort to shutter the investigations against him can only happen if Kavanaugh is on the court to support it.
It will come up. It is almost assured to. It may take the form of acquiescing as Trump fires his attorney general in the next few weeks or months, replacing him with a willing accomplice, firing his deputy as well, or even taking more direct control of the Russia investigation himself. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has suggested such plans may be forthcoming, and has expressed support for Trump doing so. The White House may make new declarations backed by Republican lawmakers that nobody surrounding Trump may give testimony about his actions to federal investigators, period—declaring in effect that the president and his staff is, via some torturous new interpretation of executive privilege, immune to even review of their actions.
Any of these acts will provoke a constitutional crisis. The Supreme Court, with or without Brett Kavanough, is almost certain to be asked to defend or reject the White House's newly-invented abilities to shield themselves from the multiple criminal investigations. Whether Kavanough is on the court on that particular day to cast the deciding vote is, to the Republican Senate, of existential importance.
None of Kavanaugh’s other legal opinions are the stuff of urgency; there is no expiration date on any of it, and the speed with which Republicans are frantically attempting to install Kavanaugh is not likely an effort to outrun the release of Kavanaugh's still-unknown documents because such efforts appear to be absolutely unnecessary. It is instead a frantic dash to install the last remaining available defense that could protect their party leader, a tool to summarily garrote the investigation into whether or not the Republican White House committed acts of corruption and treason.
There can be, for Republican senators who have protected Trump at every turn, no more urgent need. Ensuring Kavanaugh is available to cast the required vote from the very first day of the new Supreme Court session is the only remaining way to block the public and the courts from learning that the leader of the Republican Party is almost assuredly a criminal—and may be something worse.