Maine’s senior senator, Susan Collins, met with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Aug. 21. Afterward, the senator stated that Kavanaugh considers Roe v. Wade “settled law.”
Our senator seems happy with that assurance. But remember, she was happy to receive “ironclad” assurances from President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last winter to gain her support for the tax bill. But as soon as she cast her vote, those “ironclad” assurances were withdrawn.
Having been embarrassed by the lies she believed from Trump and McConnell, she now faces a vote on Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. This situation is all the more complicated by recent allegations that Trump and Michael Cohen, then his personal attorney, colluded to pay hush money to silence women claiming affairs with Trump. This hush money prevented the American voting public from receiving important information about then-candidate Trump; it was illegal. If that information about the affairs had been made public, it is conceivable that Trump might have lost the election.
Put another way, Trump allegedly broke the law to get elected. Trump’s legitimacy as president is now in question.
As Republicans are rushing to confirm Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, Susan Collins faces a constitutional test: Will she vote to confirm a nominee put forward by a president of questionable legitimacy, knowing that doing so would place into question the legitimacy of the high court itself?
So I ask Sen. Collins, “Is country or party more important to you?”
Len Freeman
Portland
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