The noise has barely died down from the Senate’s confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court — a lifetime appointment — and Democrats are already calling for his impeachment without cause, mirroring the left’s reaction to the election of Donald Trump in 2016.
Readers will recall that almost instantly upon Trump’s win, the effort to delegitimize and prevent Trump from taking power began. First, the effort was to convince the Electoral College Trump electors to overturn the outcome of the election, using now-discredited charges that Trump was a Russian agent.
When that didn’t work, the FBI’s ongoing surveillance of Trump world—which began in Oct. 2016 as an “insurance policy”—was used to foster a series of leaks to the news media, which in turn became leads for the FBI to follow up on, all signaling to the country that Trump was under active investigation as he was headed into office.
A leak about incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn speaking with Russian ambassador Sergei Kisylak in Dec. 2016 about sanctions became an excuse to question Flynn and then eventually charge him with lying to investigators by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, even though the agents that questioned him at the time did not think he lied.
But that wasn’t enough. Trump couldn’t necessarily be removed for something that occurred before he came into office. They needed something more.
Faced with the constitutional conundrum that the new administration was under investigation that had been ordered by the previous administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions soon recused himself, allowing the Justice Department to in essence operate independently absent oversight by the Attorney General — and continue the witch hunt.
And when the President attempted to intervene — his constitutional prerogative as the sole executive under the Constitution in Article II to lead or conclude investigations by law enforcement — they falsely screamed obstruction, leading to the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller.
Extraordinary means have been used to overthrow Trump, and they continue to date.
Under the Constitution, of course, these measures are all unnecessary. Elections happen in the House and Senate every two years, and for the presidency every four years. In addition, presidents are term-limited by 22nd Amendment. So the constitutional solution is for Democrats to just wait until 2020, run for president and attempt to beat Trump.
Same with Kavanaugh. If Democrats are upset at the 5-4 constitution of the Supreme Court, the solution is to again win elections and attempt to change the balance of the court. They thought they had that opportunity when Antonin Scalia died in 2016, but lacking a Senate majority, they were unable to get Merrick Garland confirmed.
All they had to do was beat Trump and they would’ve had their way. If Hillary Clinton had won, her choice for the Supreme Court would be sitting there right now. But they couldn’t get it done. Now, it’s over.
Which might mean that Democrats have to wait a generation to change the balance of the court, but so be it. That’s our system. Elections have consequences.
Arguably, prior to the current conservative majority on the court, it had been a liberal majority since the Great Depression and the New Deal. That was at a time when Republicans were politically annihilated to the point of near-extinction. But nothing lasts forever. As can be seen today, eventually Republicans regained power.
What the current Democrats of today lack is faith in the system and the patience to see through their agenda. The scorched earth campaign against Kavanaugh proves it.
They do not look to the next elections to solve their problems. They cannot. Scalia and Kennedy are now both replaced and the oldest Republican-appointed justice, Clarence Thomas, is only 70. Their plans are now conceivably years if not decades away.
So they look for imagined crimes and conjure tribunals to hear allegations and it is up to the defendants to prove their innocence, ala Trump and Russia or Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault. The presumption of innocence has been the first victim in all of these inquisitions.
Never mind the fact that neither Trump nor Kavanaugh were ever charged with let alone convicted of the crimes they are alleged to have committed. Simply the weight of the allegations are intended to remove their political opponents, if stated loud and often enough.
But that is not our constitutional system of laws. It’s just an end-run around the Constitution. If they cannot win elections, Democrats have a history of resorting to extraordinary, undemocratic means to implement their political program. But elections are our safe harbor. The society of laws is a delicate construct; it won’t take much to break it.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
