Chris Van Hollen: “article II, section 2 of the Constitution gives this body, the Senate, the responsibility to advise and consent on…”

“article II, section 2 of the Constitution gives this body, the Senate, the responsibility to advise and consent on judicial appointments. It is an important check on executive power. We are invested with this special responsibility to ensure that individuals nominated by the President to be Supreme Court Justices will be people who will make decisions fairly and impartially, without favor and without bias. That is why Lady Justice wears a blindfold and holds a balance scale on which to weigh the merits of arguments and claims that come before her. The integrity of the Supreme Court requires that every person who comes before that Court has confidence that each Justice will fairly weigh the evidence and the arguments. Judge Kavanaugh does not meet that standard. I had that concern at the very beginning of this process, and I fear it more than ever today at the end of the process. Any remaining hope that Judge Kavanaugh could be trusted to be an impartial Justice or could be perceived to be an impartial Justice was shattered by his opening statement at his last hearing. In that statement, which he emphasized he wrote in his own words, Judge Kavanaugh launched into an ultra-partisan diatribe and into wild conspiracy theories. He suggested that Dr. Ford's compelling testimony about her sexual assault was somehow manufactured by Democrats as payback for his participation in the Starr investigation, as if Dr.…”