If you thought the appointment of another Supreme Court justice would be free of funny business, then you just don’t know President Trump. According to reports on Tuesday, the entire who-will-he-pick drama of the last week was basically a show, since Trump was all but sure that Brett M. Kavanaugh would be the successor to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, and that the other “finalists” were interviewed only to give the impression that the president was engaging in a thorough search among multiple candidates.
That’s the kind of PR deception we’ve come to expect from this administration. But much more significant, it appears that Kennedy may have communicated to the White House that should the justice retire, one potential successor he’d like to see take over was his former law clerk, Kavanaugh, who has now been nominated.
Such an arrangement — literal or implied — wouldn’t be illegal. It is, however, utterly reprehensible. And it shows how degraded any and all ethical standards have become in the Trump era.
