Report: Kavanaugh Tried His Damndest to Dodge Trump’s Tax Documents Case

Earlier this month, Brett Kavanaugh surprised observers of the Supreme Court when he sided with the majority in two cases related to Donald Trump’s tax and financial records. Though he expressed reservations, the conservative justice nevertheless agreed in both cases that the president was not immune from investigators’ requests, as long as they could be justified. The man who appointed him was not pleased. “This is all a political prosecution,” Trump wrote in a series of furious tweets.

It was, it seems, just the kind of confrontation Kavanaugh was seeking to avoid. Both Cy Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, and Congressional Democrats had been seeking Trump’s elusive financial records as part of probes into his hush money payments and shady tax practices. While Kavanaugh ultimately acknowledged that the high court had no choice but to consider the Vance case, CNN reported Wednesday that he attempted to convince his fellow justices to punt on the other case, apparently looking to sidestep a face-off with the president. According to three sources familiar with the justices’ discussions, Kavanaugh sought to persuade his colleagues that the Congressional dispute would be more appropriately worked out between lawmakers and the White House, arguing that the matter was a “political question” that didn’t warrant intervention from the court. Punting would have been a mixed bag for the president: It would likely have represented a dramatic expansion of executive power, as conservatives on the court have pushed for, but it may have rendered Trump powerless to keep his banks from turning over records to lawmakers. Still, for Kavanaugh, it may have been worth it: “His approach,” as CNN reported, “would provide an off-ramp for one of the imminent confrontations between Trump and the court.”

His effort to dodge the Trump tax case, and another case involving abortion rights, seems to speak to Kavanaugh’s efforts to eschew controversy after a tumultuous confirmation. Kavanaugh was confirmed to the bench after being accused of sexual misconduct, accusations he furiously denied. Avoiding the abortion case would have allowed him to sidestep a matter that could further damage him—and lawmakers who confirmed him, like Susan Collins—with women. And avoiding a vote in the Trump tax dispute could have helped him placate a president who vociferously defended him against allegations from Christine Blasey Ford and others. “It’s a big, fat con job,” Trump said in 2018, claiming that his own accusers—of which there are more than a dozen—were all motivated by “fame...money...whatever.”

Ultimately, Kavanaugh failed to sway his colleagues. In June, the court struck down a Louisiana law restricting abortion. Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, another Trump appointee, dissented, but chief justice John Roberts joined the liberal bloc. In the Vance case, justices ruled 7-2 that Trump was not “absolutely immune” from subpoenas, with Kavanaugh and Gorsuch joining the majority. And in the Mazars case, another 7-2 ruling, justices decided that House Democrats had failed to “take adequate account of the significant separation of powers issues raised by congressional subpoenas for the President’s information,” but again made clear that the president was not above appropriate requests. Those rulings came during a term that has seen surprising liberal victories out of the Roberts court, frustrating Trump and Republicans who seemingly expected it to rubber-stamp conservative arguments. “These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court,” Trump wrote last month, “are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives.”