WACO, Texas (AP) 鈥 Justice Brett Kavanaugh says the genius of the American system of government is that no one should have too much power, even as he and other conservatives on the Supreme Court are facing criticism for deferring repeatedly to President Donald Trump.
Invoking the list of grievances against King George III that the nation鈥檚 founders included in the Declaration of Independence, Kavanaugh said Thursday the framers of the Constitution were set on avoiding the concentration of power.
鈥淎nd the framers recognized in a way that I think is brilliant, that preserving liberty requires separating the power. No one person or group of people should have too much power in our system,鈥 Kavanaugh said at an event honoring his onetime boss, Kenneth Starr, a former federal judge and solicitor general celebrated by conservatives .
罢谤耻尘辫鈥檚 did not come up inside a gymnasium on the campus of McLennan Community College in Waco.
Across the street from the event, though, several dozen protesters offered a different view of Kavanaugh and Trump.
鈥淏asically, the Supreme Court has handed the country to Trump,鈥 said J.W. LaStrape, the head of the Baylor University Democrats who was among the protesters.
鈥淏K- Trump Flunky,鈥 one banner said. 鈥淪hame on You. No One is Above the Law,鈥 a placard read in a reference to the court鈥檚 2024 decision, which Kavanaugh joined, that helped Trump avoid prosecution for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
The court鈥檚 liberal justices also have objected to the conservatives鈥 repeated votes in favor of to the Supreme Court, including the most decision this week to allow the resumption of sweeping immigration operations in Southern California.
Kavanaugh鈥檚 appearance in Waco highlighted Kavanaugh鈥檚 long history with Starr, most notably his stint as a prosecutor in Starr鈥檚 independent counsel investigation of President Bill Clinton.
Starr became a household name in the late 1990s because of his investigation of Clinton鈥檚 affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Kavanaugh pushed Starr to ask Clinton in graphic detail about phone sex and specific sexual acts, according to a 1998 memo.
鈥淭he President has disgraced his office, the legal system and the American people by having sex with a 22-year-old intern and turning her life into a shambles 鈥 callous and disgusting behavior that has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle,鈥 Kavanaugh wrote.
and his report, filled with the salacious details, was released in full by House Republicans, who ultimately impeached Clinton for lying under oath. The Senate acquitted him.
At a dinner honoring Starr a year later, Kavanaugh said Starr deserved a seat on the Supreme Court, though he acknowledged it was unlikely. Still, he called Starr a hero who did not let attacks dissuade him from doing what he thought was right.
鈥淏e sorry for his critics because they were the ones who sacrificed law and principle for politics and expediency,” Kavanaugh said. 鈥淜en Starr never did that.鈥
In 2018, , then a Supreme Court nominee, as he faced sexual misconduct allegations, including from Christine Blasey Ford, who said he groped her at a party when they were teenagers and tried to remove her clothes.
Kavanaugh forcefully denied the allegations in an emotional statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, harking back to Starr’s investigation when he said 鈥渞evenge on behalf of the Clintons鈥 was part of the motivation for what he termed a 鈥渃alculated and orchestrated political hit.鈥
Starr’s widow, Alice, introduced the justice Thursday, saying she was distraught when Kavanaugh’s character was called into question.
鈥淣ot one bit of negative press was true,鈥 she said, adding that she was well familiar with such criticism from her husband’s time as independent counsel.
Ken Starr did varied work after the Whitewater investigation. He represented Jeffrey Epstein when the financier was first accused of having sex with underage girls. Epstein pleaded guilty to minor charges and accepted a light sentence in Florida in 2008, in a deal that avoided a more serious federal prosecution.
Starr served as dean of the Pepperdine University law school in the Los Angeles area and then as president of Baylor University, also in Waco. But he was forced out of the Baylor job in 2016 in the midst of a sexual assault scandal involving players on the school’s football team. A school-commissioned report found that under Starr’s leadership, Baylor did little to respond to the allegations.
Then in 2020, Starr joined Trump’s defense team that won Senate acquittal of the president after his first impeachment.
