• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Friday, March 31, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home National

US Senate Confirms Kavanaugh to Supreme Court After Divisive Fight

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
10/06/18
in National
Brett Kavanaugh

Brett Kavanaugh, shown here testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee, is expected to be confirmed as the next Supreme Court justice in a Senate vote. Photo: AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump‘s Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh on Saturday in the closest such vote in more than a century, amid controversy over sexual abuse allegations against him.

The Senate voted 50-48 to approve Kavanaugh as more than 1,000 protesters rallied in Washington against a nominee who had to overcome questions over his candor, partisan rhetoric, and lifestyle as a young man.

I applaud and congratulate the U.S. Senate for confirming our GREAT NOMINEE, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, to the United States Supreme Court. Later today, I will sign his Commission of Appointment, and he will be officially sworn in. Very exciting!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 6, 2018

The monthslong battle over the nomination has roiled American passions — the vote was disrupted on several occasions by angry protests in the gallery — but handed Trump one of the biggest victories of his presidency.

It drew the line under a bruising nomination process defined by harrowing testimony from a woman who says Kavanaugh tried to rape her when they were teenagers — and by his fiery rebuttal.

The two-vote margin of victory made it the closest confirmation vote since 1881, when Stanley Matthews, President James Garfield‘s pick, sealed a 24 to 23 win.

The confirmation means Trump has succeeded in having his two picks seated on the court — tilting it decidedly to the right in a major coup for the Republican leader less than halfway through his term.

It reflects a high water mark of the Trump presidency: Republican control of the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives and the judiciary’s top court.

But the Kavanaugh spectacle, fueled by extraordinary accusations and counter-claims in nationally televised hearings, and tense battles over an 11th-hour FBI investigation to address the assault allegations, has inflamed political passions.

Today is a historic day for our country as a majority in the U.S. Senate voted to send a new voice to the Supreme Court who will uphold the timeless vision of America’s founders — Judge Brett Kavanaugh. My full statement below: pic.twitter.com/OYlkQEMOCR

— Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) October 6, 2018

‘Shame!’

Just hours before the vote, scores of protesters broke through barricades and staged a raucous sit-in protest on the U.S. Capitol steps, just feet away from the imposing doors to the Rotunda.

As protesters chanted “Shame!” and “November is coming!” police took several dozen protesters down the steps and put them in plastic flex-cuffs.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation process has laid bare the partisan gridlock on Capitol Hill and the political polarization of America just a month before midterm elections.

His promotion to the Supreme Court also stands as a demoralizing defeat for Democrats who had battled hard to block the 53-year-old judge at all costs.

But Senator Ed Markey insisted ahead of the confirmation that it would only galvanize Democrats to deliver a “devastating” blow to Republicans at the ballot box.

“The Democrats are going to pivot to the election, and we’re going to turn this nomination into a referendum on whether or not Donald Trump can be trusted to name federal judges or to continue to control an absolute monopoly on creating public policy in the United States,” Markey told reporters.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation had already been all but sealed Friday, when he won the support of key Senate Republican Susan Collins and conservative Democrat Joe Manchin.

Watch: The voices of protesters roared through the Senate as lawmakers attempted to vote on the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. #KavanaughVote pic.twitter.com/08BoSoMHEX

— Vox (@voxdotcom) October 6, 2018

‘Presumption of Innocence’

Kavanaugh’s confirmation as a replacement for retiring justice Anthony Kennedy was controversial from the start — but the initial focus was solely on the conservative views held by the married father of two.

His ascent to the Supreme Court was thrown into doubt last week after university research psychologist Christine Blasey Ford testified that he had sexually assaulted her at a Washington area gathering in the early 1980s.

The brutal hearing sparked a supplemental FBI dive into Kavanaugh’s background and a weeklong delay of the Senate vote.

While many senators said they were satisfied with the FBI probe, her lawyers called the investigation insufficient.

“An FBI investigation that did not include interviews of Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh is not a meaningful investigation in any sense of the word,” they said in a statement quoted in U.S. media.

Collins — a moderate Republican from Maine — said Kavanaugh was entitled to the “presumption of innocence” as the allegations against him were not substantiated with corroborating evidence.

While acknowledging that Blasey Ford’s testimony was “sincere, painful and compelling,” Collins added: “We will be ill-served in the long run if we abandon the presumption of innocence and fairness.”

Immediately after that speech, Manchin announced his support, calling Kavanaugh a “qualified jurist” who “will not allow the partisan nature this process took to follow him onto the court.”

‘Agonizing’

Kavanaugh’s nomination seals a conservative majority on the nine-seat high court, possibly for decades to come.

There were loud protests, both in Washington and in other cities across the United States as the vote went ahead.

Hundreds were arrested on Capitol Hill this week — including several dozens in the hours leading to the final vote.

Authorities took the rare step of putting up low metal fences around the Capitol, keeping the public some distance from the building. But protesters overran the barricades and defiantly claimed the Capitol steps.

Trump tweeted that the demonstrators included female Kavanaugh supporters who were “gathering all over Capitol Hill.” But they were not immediately visible in the area around the legislature.

The president claimed on Friday that billionaire financier George Soros, a Democratic funder and frequent target of conservatives, was behind the demonstrations against his nominee.

"We are stronger than the Brett Kavanaughs of the world," speaker at protest before Supreme Court says as Kavanaugh vote concludes, "and now we will show Senator Collins and Donald Trump and the rest of these Republicans just how real our movement is." https://t.co/DQbdRxlr5E pic.twitter.com/a5kFrXyvlF

— ABC News (@ABC) October 6, 2018

Share4Tweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

Donald Trump
National

US Supreme Court Freezes Release of Trump Tax Returns

by Staff Writer
November 1, 2022
Donald Trump
National

US Capitol Riot Probe Votes to Subpoena Trump to Testify

by Staff Writer
October 13, 2022
Steve Bannon
National

Former Trump Advisor Bannon Charged With Fraud in New York

by Staff Writer
September 8, 2022
US President Donald Trump
Opinion

Donald Trump Thanks You for Your Sacrifice

by Stephen J. Lyons
August 17, 2022
Mar-A-Lago raid
National

FBI Raid on Trump’s Home Ignites Political Firestorm

by Staff Writer
August 9, 2022
US President Donald Trump
Opinion

Owning the Words and the Libs

by Stephen J. Lyons
June 16, 2022
Next Post
Doctors in protective gear

100 Years On, Spanish Flu Holds Lessons for Next Pandemic

Viktoria Marinova

Bulgaria Under Pressure After Journalist's Brutal Murder

Recommended

Damage from a series of powerful storms and at least one tornado is seen on March 25, 2023, in Rolling Fork, Mississippi

After Tornado Kills 25, Mississippi Faces More Extreme Weather

March 26, 2023
Transgender Army veteran Tanya Walker speaks to protesters in Times Square near a military recruitment centre

Tennessee Is A Drag on the First Amendment

March 26, 2023
participants of an artificial intelligence conference

How AI Could Upend the World Even More Than Electricity or the Internet

March 19, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping

China’s Path to Economic Dominance

March 15, 2023
Heavily armed police inspect the area near a Jehovah's Witness church where several people have been killed in a shooting in Hamburg, northern Germany

Eight Dead in Shooting at Jehovah’s Witness Hall in Germany

March 10, 2023
Myanmar Rohingya refugees look on in a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, on November 26, 2016

US Announces $26M in New Aid for Rohingya

March 8, 2023

Opinion

Transgender Army veteran Tanya Walker speaks to protesters in Times Square near a military recruitment centre

Tennessee Is A Drag on the First Amendment

March 26, 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping

China’s Path to Economic Dominance

March 15, 2023
An earthquake survivor reacts as rescuers look for victims and other survivors in Hatay, a Turkish province where hundreds of buildings were destroyed by the earthquake

Heed the Call of Our Broken World

March 1, 2023
Top view of the US House of Representatives

‘Cringy Awards:’ Who Is the Most Embarrassing US House Representative?

February 13, 2023
Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, outside of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 27, 2023

How Do Violent ‘Monsters’ Take Root?

February 3, 2023
George Santos from the 3rd Congressional district of New York

George Santos for Speaker!

January 16, 2023
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post