I’d pay good money to see that.
If law enforcement is continuing an investigation after they have determined, with reasonable certainty, that the statue of limitations has passed, yes, they should be held accountable.
Our free press is an appropriate investigator when there is evidence of wrongdoing that can’t be addressed by the law.
I don’t see why. AFAIK jails don’t routinely provide prisoners with the equipment necessary to telecommute; in fact they don’t even allow prisoners to bring in their own cell phones or private computers. As a rule, when people go to prison they generally get fired from their job, if they hadn’t been already.
If he were the President, you could maybe argue that vital national interests depend on his ability to continue doing his job right up until the second he loses said job. But the country can and frequently does get by for a few months with less than the full quota of SCOTUS judges.
What oversight authority does Congress have over the Supreme Court?
If an investigation made sense then, and it had been done then, then we’d know about it. The justification is the same as it always was. If the investigation might have found something that would preclude his confirmation, then it might something that would support his removal.
Not doing it now seems like a great incentive to future politicians to obstruct the process because once it’s over, the obstruction can be retroactively used as a justification to not do it!
To preclude the confirmation, it was necessary to show, not that he was once a rapist, but that he was a RINO.
Senate confirmation is a political process. Injecting the national police force into it —as we do again and again — goes against the deeper meaning of democracy.
The press was effective in finding actual evidence of long age but serious misconduct. What’s in my link isn’t he-said she-said, but proven. And could not harm Kavanaugh, then or now.
Sure, in a realpolitick sense, the investigation was meaningless then and now. But that’s not the argument I was responding to, which is that the investigation was justified then, but isn’t now.
If the investigation was justified then, then it’s justified now that we’ve found out that what was done then was a farce.
Yes, if the investigation was proven to be a sham.
Another analogy is security clearances. If I get a clearance based on a poorly executed investigation, do I get to keep my clearance? Or do they redo it correctly?
They redo it correctly, because a security clearance is a contingent authorization that requires a background investigation. A security clearance also involves constant monitoring, and regular, periodic reviews. All of this is explicitly set out in regulations that carry the force of law.
That is, unless a proper authority simply orders you to be cleared regardless of the results of a background investigation, which is also something that occasionally happens and is perfectly legal. Security clearances are at the sole and virtually unfettered discretion of the President.
A judicial appointment is something else entirely. It is a Constitutional office, that is quite explicitly not contingent or discretionary. Once someone is appointed to the bench, the only avenue to remove them is impeachment and a Senate trial, with a 2/3 vote to convict. There is simply no requirement in statute or the Constitution for a background investigation, much less grounds for revocation based on a “poorly executed investigation.”
All true, but not relevant to my point. The analogy does not extend to contingency or discretion, so any incongruity on those elements is not disqualifying.
Here is a more general principle.
If action is taken based on information, and the information is found to be incomplete or unreliable, then at a minimum efforts should be made to obtain reliable information so options for correction can be evaluated.
Say research is done proving men named Cecil cause cancer, so Congress outlaws men named Cecil. It is later found out that the research was not done properly. I think we all agree that the research should be done properly so that Congress can best decide what to do next. Just letting the law stand unexamined is not a good choice.
Please note that I never said anything was grounds for revocation, just that attempts should be made to improve highly questionable information. That concept was an insertion on your part.
The justification then was to provide information to senators and executive branch members in advance of the appointment, for the purpose of its consideration. The appointment is done and there’s no constitutional provision for a do-over. If there are impeachment charges to be looked into, that’s a new matter, distinct from a general background investigation, and by all means, proceed with those. But a general FBI-conducted background investigation to a sitting Supreme Court justice to inform the public or even to search for unspecified grounds for impeachment would, I believe, be unprecedented and represent a serious interference with the Judicial branch by the Executive.
There are maintenance requirements for security clearances that fall under the FBI’s national security responsibilities. Even for correctly performed security clearance investigations, there are periodic reinvestigation requirements. If a clearance-holder, or even Justice Kavanaugh, is seen to represent a national security risk, the FBI already has the authority to look into the matter. Presumably, someone holding a security clearance as a result of a faulty investigation qualifies as a security risk worthy of immediate investigation.
Also, it’s not like the FBI publishes the results of its background checks to begin with. They’re sent to a very limited audience – if the FBI were to re-do the investigation, to whom would they send the results? To the empty set of senators considering the nomination? To President Biden so that he could consider withdrawing the nomination? What are those calling for a new investigation expecting the FBI to do with the results?
I understand your argument, I just disagree with it. This isn’t an arbitrary witch hunt investigation of the Judicial branch, it’s the investigation that should have been done, that everyone publicly agreed should have been done and thought was done, but apparently wasn’t due to fraud and obstruction.
“Just obstruct a legitimate investigation until the moment is over and then argue that there’s no longer a basis for it” is a great way to get to an unaccountable government.
You’re the one who brought up security clearances.
But, again, there is no actual requirement for an FBI investigation prior to confirmation. The first one was pretty much a PR stunt from the get-go.
The President appointed Brett Kavanaugh to a vacant seat on the Supreme Court. The Senate gave its advice and consent. That’s it. That’s the ball game.
And are any of the senators who voted to confirm Kavanaugh now saying that they want a re-investigation? Have they indicated that they think their confirmation votes were based on faulty information from a flawed investigation?
Then it may be that I don’t understand your argument. You say:
But that can’t be true if the justification then was to provide information in advance of Kavanaugh’s confirmation. It was indeed justified then, but circumstances have changed, and that justification no longer exists. There has to be a new justification, or I have to be wrong about what the previous justification was. It seems to me that you’re just saying if a thing is ever justified, it’s forever justified.
There were public questions about the quality of the investigation at the time. What perhaps should have happened is that our representative senators should have looked at it then, scoffed, and withheld voting on confirmation until given something more complete.
If you construe the justification for something narrowly enough, then you can argue that. I believe you are wrong to do so.
The justification for investigating Kavanaugh was “We shouldn’t have rapists on the bench”. If you want to claim that it was just “We shouldn’t put rapists on the bench”, and now that he got there (possibly due to obstruction), oh well, shrug, then you can do that, but I’m not inclined to agree with you.
Wouldn’t it be nice.
Sure he was :Trump to aides- “Find me a judge that will make the Evangelicals happy by being anti-abortion.” “Here you go, Mr President.”
I do want to point out that both Kavanaugh and Ford gave extensive testimony, the FBI could have simply reviewed that testimony.
That’s the heart of it then. I do strongly believe that the justification for exercising police powers needs to be narrowly constrained, even if doing so sometimes leads to outcomes I don’t like. I believe I am not wrong to do so. 
I agree with the principle you’ve stated here, but not with the way you’ve applied it to the issue at question.
“Successfully obstructing justice shouldn’t be an effective defense against the legitimate exercise of police powers” is another important principle, and in this case I think a more important one.
My point stands - if a decision is made with faulty information, the right thing to do is to attempt to get better information and then decide what corrective action, if any, to take.
The wrong course of action is to ignore the fact that faulty information drove the decision and refuse any corrective action out of hand.
Which do you recommend?
Yup. The new justification is that the original information used to make the decision was faulty.
Unless you think there is some sort of double jeopardy for investigations.