Judge Kavanaugh ethics complaints, Christine Blasey Ford death threats, Kavanaugh sexual assault allegations, Shelter Migrant Child Abuse

 

-  Chief Justice John Roberts is referring ethics complaints against new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh

- Statement on BrettKavanaugh.com

-  Christine Blasey Ford Still Can't Return Home Due to Threats

-  Democrats not giving up Kavanaugh battle "taking steps to obtain and release detailed documents and emails about the sexual assault allegations against him"

-  Arizona Shelter Shut in Latest Case of Migrant Child Abuse

 

 

Roberts asks federal judges to handle Kavanaugh complaints
The Associated Press MARK SHERMAN Oct 10th 2018
WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts is referring ethics complaints against new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to federal judges in Colorado and neighboring states.

 

The complaints deal with statements Kavanaugh made during his confirmation hearings. They were filed originally with Kavanaugh's old court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

 

Roberts took no action on them while Kavanaugh's nomination was pending. He received the first three of 15 eventual complaints on Sept. 20, a week before Kavanaugh's angry denial of a sexual assault allegation by Christine Blasey Ford.

 

It's possible the complaints will never be investigated if the lower-court judges determine they have no jurisdiction over a Supreme Court justice under the judiciary's ethics rules. The judges may be forced to conclude "that intervening events have rendered the allegations moot or make remedial action impossible," said Arthur Hellman, an ethics professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

 

Another ethicist, Stephen Gillers of New York University, disagreed that the complaints are moot. Kavanaugh remains a federal judge and the complaints "allege misconduct that occurred while Kavanaugh was on the D.C. Circuit and subject to the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges. Any violation of the Code does not disappear because he is now on another federal court," Gillers said in an email.

But Gillers said the complaints "may be found not to be meritorious in the end."....

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/10/10/roberts-asks-federal-judges-to-handle-kavanaugh-complaints/23557425/ 

 

 

Statement on BrettKavanaugh.com
October 9, 2018
Three years ago, I bought a handful of URLs that I thought might be useful in any forthcoming Supreme Court confirmation battles. Included were BrettKavanaugh.com, .org and .net.

 

Today I am redirecting those three to a landing page with resources for victims of sexual assault.

I believe Dr. Ford. I believe Prof. Hill. I also believe that asking for forgiveness is a sign of maturity and strength, not weakness.

 

Watching the White House ceremony last night and listening to the President again cast doubt on the veracity of Dr. Ford’s claims, while not hearing a word of contrition from the newest justice, was difficult for many Americans who have experienced sexual misconduct firsthand.

Fix the Court stands with you. We believe you, and we support you. And if you seek additional resources, you can go to BrettKavanaugh.com.
https://fixthecourt.com/2018/10/kavanaughurl/

 

 

Christine Blasey Ford Still Can't Return Home Due to Threats
By Natasha Bach October 8, 2018

The book is closed on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. But while he has been confirmed to the highest court, the story isn’t over for his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.

 

Ford’s lawyers told NBC News on Sunday that Ford and her family have still been unable to return to their home due to the death threats she continues to face after testifying against Kavanaugh on Sep. 27.

 

“Her family has been through a lot,” Debra Katz said. “They are not living at home. It’s going to be quite some time before they’re able to live at home.”

“The threats have been unending,” she added, “It’s deplorable. It’s been very frightening.”

 

Ford had already alluded to these threats in her testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, telling the committee that she and her family had been living in “various secure locales” with security guards since Sept. 16. She said that she and her family had been subject to harassment and death threats, and that she had been “called the most vile and hateful names imaginable.”

“My greatest fears have been realized—and the reality has been far worse than what I expected,” she said.

 

Ford’s other attorney, Lisa Banks, told NBC that the government’s handling of Ford’s case was “far worse” than that of Anita Hill. With Hill, she said, “there was a full FBI investigation before there was ever a hearing.”

 

She added that Ford was “horrified” by Trump’s comments that sought to undermine her credibility. “She was upset by it, yes, as any woman would be who’s the victim of sexual assault and was mocked and belittled by anyone, never mind the president of the United States,” Banks said.

http://fortune.com/2018/10/08/christine-blasey-ford-still-facing-threats/

 

 

 

Democrats not giving up Kavanaugh battle
The conservative jurist is settling into a lifetime appointment, but Democratic leaders think they can still discredit him and GOP leaders
By JOSH GERSTEIN 10/10/2018

 

Democrats are showing no signs of backing off their battle against newly minted Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, pressing forward with legal fights to unearth potentially damaging records that didn’t go public during the white-hot nomination contest.

 

Democratic leaders are taking steps to obtain and release detailed documents and emails about the sexual assault allegations against him and disputed aspects of his service during the Bush administration.

 

While Democrats are strategizing to get what they consider the most potentially impactful records out soon, it’s all but certain that the process will drag on for years and perhaps even decades.

 

Many Democrats are skittish about talk of impeaching Kavanaugh, an effort that seems doomed in the Senate even if Democrats win control of the House in midterm elections next month. But there seems to be a broad consensus on the left to keep up the fight for documents lawmakers believe should have been made public before the vote on Trump’s second high court nominee.

 

Democratic lawmakers say it’s worth serving up a reminder of how Republicans tried to short-circuit the process and gave short shrift to Ford’s allegations.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi followed through Wednesday on a promised Freedom of Information Act request demanding records related to the background investigation the FBI reopened into Kavanaugh after Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he sexually assaulted her during high school, a claim Kavanaugh categorically denied.

 

“The FBI’s supplemental background investigation appears to have been significantly limited in scope to ensure that a thorough investigation would not take place, numerous witnesses would not be questioned, and numerous questions would not be asked — including whether Justice Kavanaugh deliberately misled Congress on multiple subjects,” Pelosi wrote in her letter seeking documents about the FBI's interviews and the ground rules for the inquiry. “The public must know what limitations were imposed on the FBI and who imposed them, so this never happens again.”....
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/10/kavanaugh-faces-drip-drip-drip-on-records-892054

 

 

Arizona Shelter Shut in Latest Case of Migrant Child Abuse

By Associated Press

 

(PHOENIX) — Staff members at a Phoenix-area shelter for unaccompanied migrant children physically abused three children, leading to the closure of the shelter, federal officials said. It was the latest in a series of incidents of alleged abuse involving staff members at shelters and children.

 

Southwest Key’s Hacienda del Sol shelter was shut down last Friday, but federal officials did not reveal the reason behind the closure until Tuesday.

The Texas-based federal contractor has fired the staffers involved in the Sept. 18 incident, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement....

 

Arizona has seen numerous allegations of sexual abuse at its many shelters for immigrant children, including one made by the government of El Salvador, which said it received reports of three children, 12 to 17, who were sexually abused at unnamed shelters in Arizona. 

 

Last month, a former youth care worker was convicted of sexually abusing seven teenage boys at a Phoenix-area shelter for immigrant children.

In August, authorities arrested a 32-year-old man on allegations that he had molested a 14-year-old girl at a Southwest Key facility the previous month....
http://time.com/5421462/arizona-migrant-children-shelter-abuse/ 

Chief Justice John Roberts Accused of ‘Cover Up’ for Sitting on Kavanaugh Misconduct Complaints, FBI’s Kavanaugh review was limited from the start, The New York Times reports

-  Chief Justice John Roberts Accused of ‘Cover Up’ for Sitting on Kavanaugh Misconduct Complaints

-  FBI’s Kavanaugh review was limited from the start, The New York Times reports

-  D.C. Circuit sent complaints about Kavanaugh’s testimony to Chief Justice Roberts

-  Anti-Kavanaugh protesters keep up the fight, even after he's confirmed

Chief Justice John Roberts Accused of ‘Cover Up’ for Sitting on Kavanaugh Misconduct Complaints
by Colin Kalmbacher October 6th, 2018

 

 

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has received over a dozen official judicial misconduct complaints leveled against U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Court Judge and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

 

So far he has not forwarded the complaints to a proper judicial panel. Now, some critics are calling foul and accusing Roberts of mounting a cover-up in favor of the controversial Supreme Court nominee.

 

Those official misconduct complaints were forwarded to Roberts by a fellow member of Kavanaugh’s court. While U.S. Circuit Judge Merrick Garland would traditionally have overseen those complaints, Garland chose to recuse himself on the matter, according to Buzzfeed News.

 

In his stead, U.S. Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson fielded the multiple complaints against Kavanaugh. Judge Henderson dismissed many complaints filed against the Supreme Court nominee as “frivolous,” but found substantial merit in over a dozen of the complaints she reviewed.

 

According to the Washington Post, Henderson began forwarding the complaints she deemed valid onto Roberts. Henderson sent them to Roberts so that Kavanaugh’s fellow judges on the D.C. Circuit would not have to assess the serious and substantive issues raised against a colleague.

 

In a statement released early on Saturday afternoon, Judge Henderson noted, “Under the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act (28 U.S.C. §§351-364) any person may file a misconduct complaint against a federal judge in the circuit in which the federal judge sits. After the start of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, members of the general public began filing complaints in the D.C. Circuit about statements made during those hearings.”

 

Henderson’s statement continued, clarifying the conduct at issue. She wrote, “The complaints do not pertain to any conduct in which Judge Kavanaugh engaged as a judge. The complaints seek investigations only of the public statements he has made as a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States.”....

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/chief-justice-john-roberts-accused-of-cover-up-for-sitting-on-kavanaugh-misconduct-complaints/

 

 

FBI’s Kavanaugh review was limited from the start, The New York Times reports

The FBI’s review of Brett Kavanaugh’s background check was limited from the start, The New York Times reports. Joy Reid and her panel discuss the impact reportedly restricting the investigation’s scope may have had on its findings.
https://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/fbi-s-kavanaugh-review-was-limited-from-the-start-the-new-york-times-reports-1338382915520

 

D.C. Circuit sent complaints about Kavanaugh’s testimony to Chief Justice Roberts

By Carol D. Leonnig , Ann E. Marimow and Tom Hamburger October 6

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has received more than a dozen judicial misconduct complaints in recent weeks against Brett M. Kavanaugh, who was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice Saturday, but has chosen for the time being not to refer them to a judicial panel for investigation.

 

A judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit — the court on which Kavanaugh serves — passed on to Roberts a string of complaints the court received starting three weeks ago, said four people familiar with the matter.

That judge, Karen LeCraft Henderson, had dismissed other complaints against Kavanaugh as frivolous, but she concluded that some were substantive enough that they should not be handled by Kavanaugh’s fellow judges in the D.C. Circuit.

 

In a statement Saturday, Henderson said the complaints centered on statements Kavanaugh made during his Senate confirmation hearings.

Under the law, “any person may file a misconduct complaint in the circuit in which the federal judge sits,” she said in the statement. “The complaints do not pertain to any conduct in which Judge Kavanaugh engaged as a judge. The complaints seek investigations only of the public statements he has made as a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States.”....

 

People familiar with the matter say the allegations made in the complaints — that Kavanaugh was dishonest and lacked judicial temperament during his Senate testimony — had already been widely discussed in the Senate and in the public realm. Roberts did not see an urgent need for them to be resolved by the judicial branch while he continued to review the incoming complaints, they said.

 

The situation is highly unusual, said legal experts and several people familiar with the matter. Never before has a Supreme Court nominee been poised to join the court while a fellow judge recommends that misconduct claims against that nominee warrant review.

 

Roberts’s decision not to immediately refer the cases to another appeals court has caused some concern in the legal community. Now that he has been confirmed, the details of the complaints may not become public and instead may be dismissed, legal experts say. Supreme Court justices are not subject to the misconduct rules governing these claims.

 

“If Justice Roberts sits on the complaints, then they will reside in a kind of purgatory and will never be adjudicated,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University Law School and an expert on Supreme Court ethics. “This is not how the rules anticipated the process would work.”....

 

Roberts, an appointee of President George W. Bush, has for many years hired Kavanaugh clerks to work for him at the Supreme Court. Bush credits Kavanaugh in his book with helping him choose Roberts for the high court when Kavanaugh was a White House lawyer.

 

Normally, misconduct complaints are confidential and do not become public until they are fully investigated and concluded.

 

Most of these complaints center on Kavanaugh’s answers about his work in the Bush administration, according to people familiar with them. They also accuse Kavanaugh of lacking judicial temperament in his partisan comments about Democrats, the people said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dc-circuit-sent-complaints-about-kavanaughs-testimony-to-chief-justice-roberts/2018/10/06/c7e7b526-c8d0-11e8-b1ed-1d2d65b86d0c_story.html 

 

 

 

Anti-Kavanaugh protesters keep up the fight, even after he's confirmed
By Ralph Ellis, CNN Sat October 6, 2018

CNN)Protesters opposed to Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the US Supreme Court swarmed over Washington on Saturday -- massing at the Capitol, disrupting the confirmation vote in the Senate and banging on the Supreme Court building doors when Kavanaugh arrived to be sworn in.

About 5:45 p.m. ET Saturday, a large crowd of protesters surged onto the front steps of the Supreme Court, chanting, "Hey hey, ho ho, Kavanaugh has got to go."

After police pushed them back from the doors, the demonstrators held signs and chanted, "No justice, no peace," and "We believe Anita Hill," a reference to the woman who accused Justice Clarence Thomas of misconduct.

It's not known if Kavanaugh heard the protesters. Police cleared the steps of the court about 6:15 p.m. and set up barriers.

 

Protesters stood one by one in different sections of the gallery, most with their fists raised, and yelled "I will not consent."

 

"The sergeant-at-arms will restore order in the gallery," the presiding officer, Vice President Mike Pence, said several times.

Police forcibly removed the protesters, with one person dragged out by their arms and legs. They kept screaming as they were pulled into the hallway.
Crowds started forming around 9 a.m. ET outside the Capitol building and the Supreme Court building and grew through the morning.

Protesters occupied the Rotunda Steps on the East Front of the US Capitol early Saturday afternoon, with about 150 of them being arrested, Capitol Police said in a news release. Video showed them lined up, with wrists cuffed behind their backs on the Capitol lawn. Police cleared the steps and the Capitol Plaza, and the protesters headed back to the Supreme Court....

 

A demonstration scheduled for Saturday outside Collins' office in Portland, Maine, was canceled.

A group gathered there Friday and fell silent when she announced her decision, CNN affiliate WGME reported.

"It's just this feeling of being utterly ignored," Jenny O'Connell of Portland told WGME on Friday. "Susan Collins just made a huge choice to ignore her constituents and survivors (of sexual assault)." https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/06/politics/kavanaugh-protests/index.html