Kacsmaryk Mislead the Senate in His Confirmation Hearings

Some likely think me aweful, but during my almost 35 years involved in politics I have found few people or groupds of people who liar more and disseminate more deliberate falsehoods against those they dislike - typically gays, racial minorities and non-Christians - than evangelicals and Christofascists.  For these people, the end justifies the means, so lying, deception, untruths, a total disregard for eithics, and harming others are all fully acceptable if they further the increasingly anti-democratic evangelical/Christofascist agenda.  Forcing their reactionary and hate and division based religious beliefs on all citizens is all that matters.  Certainly falling into the Christofascist category is  Matthew Kacsmaryk (oictured above), the Trump appointed federal judge who last week invalidated the sale of a long used anti-abortion drug nationawide (his ruling has been stayed and the case is on appeal). Sadly, Kacsmaryk is representative of some of the extremist and/or unqualified judges nominated by Donald Trump and approved by the then GOP control Senate. Trump's nominee selection focused on far right ideology rather than credentials and the ability to objectively and unbiasedly decide cases. Now, it turns out that Kacmaryk may have deliberately sought to hide his anti-gay and anti-abortion extremism during his confirmation hearings - remember, lies and deceit are fine if they aid the Christofascist cause.  The Washington Post looks at his apparent deliberate effort to hide some of his most extreme views.  Here are highlights: 

As a lawyer for a conservative legal group, Matthew Kacsmaryk in early 2017 submitted an article to a Texas law review criticizing Obama-era protections for transgender people and those seeking abortions.

The Obama administration, the draft article argued, had discounted religious physicians who “cannot use their scalpels to make female what God created male” and “cannot use their pens to prescribe or dispense abortifacient drugs designed to kill unborn children.”

But a few months after the piece arrived, an editor at the law journal who had been working with Kacsmaryk received an unusual email: Citing “reasons I may discuss at a later date,” Kacsmaryk, who had originally been listed as the article’s sole author, said he would be removing his name and replacing it with those of two colleagues at his legal group, First Liberty Institute, according to emails and early drafts obtained by The Washington Post.

What Kacsmaryk did not say in the email was that he had already been interviewed for a judgeship by his state’s two senators and was awaiting an interview at the White House.

As part of that process, he was required to list all of his published work on a questionnaire submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee, including “books, articles, reports, letters to the editor, editorial pieces, or other published material you have written or edited.”

The article, titled “The Jurisprudence of the Body,” was published in September 2017 by the Texas Review of Law and Politics, a right-leaning journal that Kacsmaryk had led as a law student at the University of Texas. But Kacsmaryk’s role in the article was not disclosed, nor did he list the article on the paperwork he submitted to the Senate in advance of confirmation hearings in which Kacsmaryk’s past statements on LGBT issues became a point of contention.

Now, six years later, as Kacsmaryk sits as a judge in Amarillo, Tex., his strong ideological views have grabbed the country’s attention after his ruling this month that sought to block government approval of a key drug used in more than half of all abortions in the country — an opinion that invoked antiabortion-movement rhetoric and which some medical experts have said relied on debunked claims that exaggerate potential harms of the drug.

[O]ne former review editor familiar with the events said there was no indication that Kacsmaryk had been a “placeholder,” adding that this was the only time during their tenure at the law review that they ever saw author names swapped. The former editor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, provided emails and several drafts of the article.

The circumstances surrounding the article’s authorship raise questions about whether a judicial nominee was seeking to duck scrutiny from a process designed to ensure that judges are prepared to interpret the law without personal bias, said lawyers who worked on judicial nominations in Republican and Democratic administrations . . . . Adam H. Charnes, who worked on judicial nominations while the principal deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy under President George W. Bush . . . “I’m pretty sure the Senate would expect you to produce something like that,” Charnes said. The scenario “strikes me as problematic,” he said — and, he added, “a little shady.” 

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s questionnaire requires nominees to disclose any publication with which they are associated, regardless of whether they are formally listed as authors, said Alex Aronson, who was a former chief counsel to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R. I) and led judicial nominations for the senator. Whitehouse questioned Kacsmaryk during his confirmation hearing.

To leave such a publication off the questionnaire, he added, is “unethical” and raises concerns about “the candor and honesty of the nominee.”

When Kacsmaryk requested the authorship switch, the editor familiar with the events said they raised the issue with Reitz, the law review’s editor in chief. The lower-ranking editor asked why Kacsmaryk was making the request. Reitz smiled, the editor recalled, then said, “You’ll see.”

Even after Butterfield and Taub were designated the authors, Kacsmaryk remained involved, the emails show, offering additional minor edits. The final version is almost identical to the one submitted under Kacsmaryk’s name.

During his confirmation hearing that December, Democratic senators questioned Kacsmaryk extensively on his views on LBGT rights and abortion — issues at the heart of the article he had submitted to the law journal.

The journal article argues against a 2016 Department of Health and Human Services rule forbidding doctors to discriminate against patients who seek gender-affirming care or pregnancy termination. The rule from the Obama administration, the article says, should contain a “conscientious objector” exception.

A law review article is exactly the kind of material the Senate Judiciary Committee is trying to gather in the judicial confirmation process, several people said, because it provides a sense of the judge’s personal opinions.

Many of Kacsmaryk’s recent decisions have been wins for the right, including two that struck down new Biden administration protections for transgender people. One decision, issued late last year, involved the same issues raised in the journal article, “Jurisprudence of the Body.”

Kacsmaryk sided with doctors represented by America First Legal Foundation, set up by former Trump White House adviser Stephen Miller, who challenged HHS guidelines designed to protect transgender patients against discrimination.

It will take decades to undo the damage done to the federal judiciary - including the Supreme Court - done by Der Trumpenfuhrer.