How Trump’s 2024 Announcement Could Affect Justice Dept. Inquiries
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced in his State of the Union address on Tuesday that he planned to nominate Brett Kavanaugh to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.
While the president’s announcement will likely prompt Democrats to launch an unprecedented, months-long effort to block Kavanaugh’s nomination, his decision has other consequential effects.
The White House will now have to fill a seat that has never before been vacant.
Trump’s decision to nominate Kavanaugh to fill the spot on the Supreme Court will likely be at least overshadowed by the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into Trump, whose White House also announced in a press conference on Tuesday that he would nominate Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
As with the president’s previous nominations, the nominee will be subject to Senate confirmation hearings. Democrats hope this confirmation process — which could take months — will prompt a more partisan vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination, ultimately forcing Senate Republicans to support Kavanaugh’s confirmation, or facing the prospect that he could face a lifetime appointment to the Court.
“With a year having passed since the last vacancy, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh on Sept. 4, 2018,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement on Tuesday.
Here’s how the announcement will affect the U.S. Department of Justice, where Trump is currently trying to push anti-immigration policies on a judge who he believes will overturn his latest executive order on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
The DOJ has been under scrutiny over the agency’s handling of the Trump administration’s immigration policy.
Kavanaugh is a conservative judge who has issued a series of decisions against the Trump administration on cases involving civil rights and immigration law. His most recent decision, handed down last month, upheld a lower court decision that allowed DACA recipients who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children to remain in the U.S. without their work permits expiring automatically, after a brief 20-day grace period.
If Kavanaugh is approved, and he is confirmed after