Hirono Cancels Meeting with Brett Kavanaugh, Calls for Delay of Hearing

Senator Mazie K. Hirono today announced that she will cancel her meeting with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Senator Hirono delivered the following statement at the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning:

“Mr. Chairman, I want to take a moment to react to yesterday’s news of the conviction of the President’s campaign chairman and the guilty plea of his personal lawyer to crimes, at the direction of the President, designed to influence the 2016 election.

“As I and others have said many times in the last two years, these are not normal times. And these are certainly not the times for this Committee to consider a Supreme Court nominee of this President, especially a nominee who thinks the President should be immune from investigation. We cannot abandon common sense in this dangerous time for our democracy. So, as I have said before, we should delay this hearing for Judge Kavanaugh. For so many reasons it is not the time.

“I will also be cancelling my meeting with Judge Kavanaugh. This President, who is an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal matter, does not deserve the courtesy of a meeting with his nominee—purposely selected to protect, as we say in Hawaii, his own okole.”