• • Pro-Abortion Billionaire George Soros Spending Millions to Defeat Brett Kavanaugh
• • Fresh signs that Democrats won't be able to stop Kavanaugh

A new political advocacy group that vowed to put $5 million behind an effort to stop Judge Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court has significant ties to the liberal financier George Soros.

A Daily Caller News Foundation review has found that the group's primary financial supporter is a nonprofit to whom Soros has given millions.

The group, Demand Justice (DJ), is organized and financed by a 501(c)(4) called the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which collected some $2.2 million in contributions from the Open Society Policy Center (OSPC), one of Soros' primary donation vehicles, between 2012 and 2016.

The Soros Connection

The Fund is largely financed by a handful of donors. Financial statements filed with state oversight officials in 2014 show just three contributors accounted for 70 percent - or some $11.5 million - of the Fund's total donations and grant revenue. Disclosure formsfiled with the same agency in 2016 present similar facts. Fewer than five donors gave $13.3 million to the Fund, representing 63 percent of their donations.

One of those donors is the OSPC. The Center's tax forms show the Soros group gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Fund each year between 2012 and 2016, the last year in which records are publicly accessible. The Center gave the Fund $350,000 in 2012, $772,000 in 2013, $125,000 in 2014, $550,000 in 2015, and $481,483 in 2016.

OSPC is practically indistinct from the Open Society Foundations (OSF), Soros' philanthropic and grant-giving network. OSPC has no employees of its own, according to the Center's 2016 tax forms. Rather, Foundations employees are compensated for any work done for the Center. Said compensation is determined by the OSF, and documented in OSF's internal records

A New Shadow Group

Demand Justice was formed in the spring of 2018 as the progressive counterpart to a constellation of conservative advocacy groups which advertise and organize around judicial confirmations. Republicans have significantly outpaced Democrats in this space in recent years, given conservative voters' sustained interest in the federal courts.

Executive director Brian Fallon told The New York Times that DJ hopes to "sensitize rank-and-file progressives to think of the courts as a venue for their activism and a way to advance the progressive agenda."

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We saw fresh signs this week that Democrats won't be able to stop the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. Axios spoke to the offices of the senators that the White House considers potential swing votes for the next Supreme Court Justice, and they're saying all the things Team Kavanaugh would want to hear.The bottom line: Even Democrats involved in the effort to oppose Kavanaugh's nomination privately admitted to Axios that there will have to be a major new development for them to have any chance of killing his confirmation. They say they need an explosive document, or a trainwreck during the confirmation hearings.

What they're saying:

• Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a centrist who supports abortion rights, met with Kavanaugh for over two hours and said the two discussed abortion "at length." Kavanaugh told her that, like Chief Justice John Roberts who was confirmed in 2005, he believes Roe v. Wade is "settled law." Collins later was complimentary of Kavanaugh, saying the meeting was excellent and that she was very pleased with his answers.
• Sen. Lisa Murkowski's (R-Alaska) communications director Karina Petersen told Axios that Murkowski, a moderate who also feels very strongly about Roe v. Wade, focused many of her questions on the fate of the case. Petersen says Kavanaugh confirmed to Murkowski what he told Collins, that the case was settled precedent.
• Sen. Joe Manchin's (D-W.Va.) communications director, Jonathan Kott, told Axios that Kavanaugh repeatedly stressed "his independence as a jurist" during their meeting, and emphasized that he "takes into account the human impact of his rulings." Kott said most of their conversation centered on how Kavanaugh's rulings would affect health care, especially for West Virginians.
• Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) emphasized the importance of shielding the court from politics following her meeting with Kavanaugh, and said the meeting helped her learn more about his judicial record and temperament.

• What to watch: Everything can still change during the confirmation process. Several Democrats have indicated they plan to aggressively grill Kavanaugh over whether he'd be willing to override precedent, and his feelings toward Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation - more specifically, whether President Trump could face prosecution while still in office.

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Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh is "well qualified" to hold a seat on the Supreme Court, the American Bar Association said Friday, giving President Trump's nominee another boost heading into next week's confirmation hearing.

The ABA's federal judiciary committee gave its unanimous rating to Judge Kavanaugh, who has sat for a dozen years on the circuit court of appeals in Washington, earning high marks for his approach to judging.

Though conservatives don't put as much stock in the rating from the liberal-leaning ABA, Democrats have called it the "gold standard" for evaluating whether a judge should be confirmed.

The rating is based on peer reviews and evaluations, and judges candidates on their integrity, professional competence and judicial temperament. It does not consider ideology, philosophy or political affiliation.





 

WASHINGTON ― Progressive groups are launching a new campaign Monday aimed at urging senators to get off the fence and state whether they will support Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee.

The effort, called #WhipTheVote, is mainly focused on Democrats, many of whom have yet to announce how they will vote on the nomination. Progressives say that Democratic senators are operating under outdated rules by reserving judgment on Kavanaugh's nomination until after his confirmation hearing next week.

The traditional courtesy for Supreme Court nominees, they add, is only giving cover to moderate Republican senators like Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to oppose the nominee's bid to the high court.

"We should ask Merrick Garland about standard Supreme Court procedure. That's not what we're operating on," Elizabeth Beavers, an associate policy director at Indivisible, one of the groups behind the effort, said on a Monday phone call with reporters.