Senator Dick Durbin complained that Kavanaugh had misled the committee when he told them that he knew nothing about a program of extraordinary interrogation, because as staff secretary he did know about debates concerning a signing statement on the practice.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse complained about the Federalist Society's involvement in Kavanaugh's nomination and about advertisements run on his behalf-matters outside Kavanaugh's control or knowledge.
Republican senators repeatedly invited Kavanaugh to nail his colors to textualism in statutory interpretation and public-meaning originalism in constitutional interpretation.
A few senators contested some Kavanaugh decisions, but they generally were not able to make their attacks stick, though they did their best to attribute opinions to Kavanaugh that he did not hold.
Senator Amy Klobuchar, one of the most substantive questioners, insinuated that an opinion of Kavanaugh's might invalidate the Social Security Administration, when in fact the opinion suggested, at most, that the agency's chief could be fired by the president at will, rather than for cause-a matter of concern only to beltway bureaucrats.
Senator Kamala Harris interrogated Kavanaugh about whether he had ever discussed Robert Mueller or the Mueller investigation with any employee of a 350-person law firm, and pounced when he said that he wouldn't know if someone he spoke with worked there.
The only reasonably effective Democratic member of the committee was Senator Christopher Coons, who interrogated Kavanaugh on executive power.
https://www.city-journal.org/democratic-attack-on-brett-kavanaugh-16162.html
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