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FACT CHECKED: NYT, WaPo, PolitiFact Debunk Dem Claims on Kavanaugh

WASHINGTON – Fact checkers have been busy doling out Pinocchios, context and corrections on Democratic attacks since President Donald Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to serve on the Supreme Court. Democratic leaders’ claims on Kavanaugh’s nomination and his record on precedent, health care, the rule of law and presidential power are being debunked faster than they can be invented.
 
With many Democratic senators announcing their blanket opposition to any potential nominee before Kavanaugh was even nominated, it’s no wonder Democratic leaders are scrambling to come up with reasons to oppose him and are forced to resort to unsubstantiated fiction.
 
Take a look at what independent, third-party fact checkers are saying about Democratic claims on Kavanaugh.
 
‘Very Wrong,’ ‘Disingenuous,’ ‘Extreme Distortion,’ ‘Exaggerated,’ ‘No Evidence to Justify These Theories’
 
Washington Post:“For the record: Supreme Court nominees considered in ‘election years’”
 
  • “Bottom line: it’s pretty clear the debate in 2016 revolved around nominations made in a presidential election year. Democrats are simply spinning a false narrative.”
 
PolitiFact: “Bernie Sanders’ claim that Brett Kavanaugh defies Supreme Court precedent a stretch”

  • Sanders is “very wrong when he suggests Kavanaugh’s opinion is at odds with 200 years of Supreme Court precedent.”
  • “We rate this statement Mostly False.”
 
New York Times: “Democrats Overstate Kavanaugh’s Writings on the Affordable Care Act” 

  • “As they try to block his nomination to the Supreme Court, Senate Democrats have exaggerated Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s hostility to the Affordable Care Act in his public statements and writings.” 
  • “Nicholas Bagley, a professor of health law and administrative law at the University of Michigan, disagreed with the Democrats’ framing of Judge Kavanaugh’s writings.”
 
Washington Post: “To say Kavanaugh is Trump’s ‘get-out-of-jail free card’ is an extreme distortion of what he’s written”

  • “Kavanaugh’s position in this article is different from saying the president can’t be indicted under existing law.”
  • On Kavanaugh’s opinion: “That’s a mainstream view.”
 
PolitiFact: “Many Democrats have latched onto Kavanaugh’s statement about investigations into presidents. But we found that Democrats aren’t telling the full story about what Kavanaugh said." 

  • “Schumer is plucking one part of what Kavanaugh wrote in a 2009 Minnesota law review paper without recapping his comments in full.”
 
Washington Post: “The thinly sourced theories about Trump’s loans and Justice Kennedy’s son” 

  • “Scratching below the surface, there’s no evidence to justify these theories.” 
  • The claims “are incendiary and worthy of Four Pinocchios.”
 
SCOTUS RESOURCES:
 

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