“Yesterday’s news brought several major revelations that have implications for Senate consideration of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to a lifetime appointment on the U.S. Supreme Court. The first was a statement from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) claiming that Judge Kavanaugh told her he stands with Chief Justice Roberts in considering Roe v. Wade to be settled law. The second is the guilty plea of President Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who admitted to unlawful campaign contributions and implicated the president.

While these developments may seem unrelated, they underscore just how detrimental Kavanaugh’s confirmation would be to women’s rights and to our democracy as a whole. In the first case, despite Sen. Collins supposedly feeling assured by Kavanaugh’s statements, the women of this country know better. We know that Brett Kavanaugh has a clear and documented record of denying women access to abortion care, and agreeing with Chief Justice Roberts — who has repeatedly ruled in ways that impede women’s access to this essential care — doubles down on that record. Kavanaugh cannot be trusted to protect our most fundamental rights.

Furthermore, our democracy is facing a possible crisis in that a sitting president has been implicated in a criminal investigation during Senate consideration of a Supreme Court justice. The next justice could decide the scope of executive branch power. Because of this, Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination is now under even more of a partisan cloud.

It is clear that Kavanaugh himself, and many Republicans in Congress, continue to obstruct and muddy the waters around his record. Kavanaugh’s nomination has already been tainted by extreme partisans who will stop at nothing to push this confirmation through. Especially alarming is their refusal to release records from Kavanaugh’s time as White House staff secretary and the fact that they are creating the false impression that he is a mainstream nominee.

The highest court in the land should be a place where everyone can get justice and where no one, not even the president, is above the law. Kavanaugh’s confirmation would undermine the trust we have in our third branch of government and therefore this confirmation process should not continue.”