U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, the only Democrat to vote to place Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, says his office is reviewing the records it has of his pre-confirmation interview with the West Virginia lawmaker after a leaked draft opinion shows the court will strike down Roe. v. Wade.
In 2018 Kavanaugh was confirmed in a 50-48 vote, after then-Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked the nuclear option and made Supreme Court nominations subject to just a simple majority vote.
Legal experts, journalists and activists are investigating if the conservatives who, according to a Politico report voted in a Supreme Court closed door meeting to overturn the 49 year old decision that found abortion is a constitutional right, lied during their confirmation hearings.
“It is settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court, entitled the respect under principles of stare decisis,” Kavanaugh said during his confirmation hearing in 2018, NPR reports. “The Supreme Court has recognized the right to abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade case. It has reaffirmed it many times.”
“Precedent is critically important. It is the foundation of our system. But you listen to all arguments,” he added.
On Wednesday CNN’s Manu Raju reported that Senator Manchin “told me when asked if he believed [Justice Kavanaugh] was telling truth on Roe in 2018: ‘We are going back through all the things we have — we had meetings with him — to find out what he said and how it was actually presented to us.'”
But on Tuesday Manchin said he had no regrets:
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), who claims to support a woman’s right to choose, voted for both Justices Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Both are reportedly voting to strike down Roe. On Tuesday she said that vote would be “inconsistent” with what they told her.
The liberal political action committee MeidasTouch has posted a provocative video in which they claim conservative Supreme Court justices have been lying about their intentions to overturn Roe v. Wade: