President Trump apologizes to Brett Kavanaugh and his family at ceremonial swearing-in as Supreme Court justice

Speaking at a swearing-in ceremony for Associate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the East Room of the White House Monday evening, President Trump apologized to Kavanaugh and his family "on behalf of our nation" for what he called a desperate Democrat-led campaign of "lies and deception" intent on derailing his confirmation.
"On behalf of our nation, I want to apologize to Brett and the entire Kavanaugh family for the terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure," Trump began. "Those who step forward to serve our country deserve a fair and dignified evaluation, not a campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception. What happened to the Kavanaugh family violates every notion of fairness, decency, and due process. In our country, a man or a woman must always be presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty."
Trump added that "under historic scrutiny," Kavanaugh had been "proven innocent." A series of uncorroborated and disputed sexual misconduct allegations had threatened to upend Kavanaugh's confirmation, and some top Democrats have floated further investigations and even possibly impeaching Kavanaugh.
To sustained, raucous applause, Trump entered the event Monday night flanked by Kavanaugh and former Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, who hired Kavanaugh as a law clerk from 1993 to 1994. All sitting Supreme Court justices were in attendance, as well as Kavanaugh's parents, wife, and two daughters.

"You, sir, under historic scrutiny, were proven innocent."
— President Trump to Brett Kavanaugh

Trump thanked top Republicans for spearheading Kavanaugh's confirmation, and particularly praised Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Kavanaugh's elevation to the Supreme Court appeared certain only after Collins delivered a dramatic, point-by-point explanation of her vote for Kavanaugh in a floor speech on Friday afternoon. "We are indebted to Susan Collins for her brave and eloquent speech," Trump said.
The president also led a standing ovation for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., whom he called a "great" leader who has done an "incredible job for the American people." Under McConnell, Republicans have now confirmed 26 federal appellate judges and two Supreme Court justices. (Kavanaugh's rise to the Supreme Court creates a new vacancy on the influential D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, where he had served for 12 years.)
SUSAN COLLINS CRITICIZES ANTI-KAVANAUGH ACTIVISTS FOR 'TRYING TO BUY VOTES'
At the conclusion of Trump's remarks, Kennedy administered the oath to Kavanaugh as his family looked on, and the room again broke out into sustained applause. As Trump noted, it was the first time a Supreme Court justice has ever sworn in his former clerk to take his seat.
Taking the podium as the Supreme Court's newest justice, Kavanaugh acknowledged the partisan rancor that surrounded his confirmation and gripped the nation over the past two months. "I take this office with gratitude and no bitterness," he said.
"All nine of us revere the Constitution," Kavanaugh continued, referring to his new colleagues. "The Supreme Court is an institution of law. It is not a partisan or political institution. The justices do not sit on opposite sides of the aisle. ... The Supreme Court is a team of nine, and I will always be a team player on a team of nine."
At times emotional, Kavanaugh praised his "amazing" and "fearless" friends for standing by him, and said that his focus now is "to be the best justice I can be."
"My goal is to be a great justice, for all Americans, and for all of America," Kavanaugh said. "I will work very hard to achieve that goal. I was not appointed to serve one party or one interest, but one nation."
He vowed to continue to "coach, teach, and tutor" -- a notable promise, given that student backlash at Harvard Law School last week prompted Kavanaugh to withdraw from teaching a planned course there.

"I take this office with gratitude and no bitterness."
— Associate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh

"I am an optimist. I live on the sunrise side of the mountain," Kavanaugh said, echoing a line from his fiery testimony last month before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I see the day that is coming, not the day that has gone."
KAVANAUGH, WIFE, ACCUSER ALL RECEIVE GRAPHIC DEATH THREATS
The Monday evening oath was entirely ceremonial. Kavanaugh took his official oaths in a private ceremony at the Supreme Court on Saturday, shortly after the Senate voted to confirm him by a narrow 50-48 margin.
The event, a high-spirited flourish after a historically bitter and partisan confirmation battle, was a nationally televised opportunity for Kavanaugh to speak directly to the nation that is increasingly divided along partisan lines. Fox News polls show that GOP enthusiasm is up across the board in the wake of the Kavanaugh showdown, even though political headwinds normally work against the party of incumbent presidents in their first midterm elections.
Kavanaugh, along with his law clerks, has been at the Supreme Court preparing for his first day on the bench Tuesday. The high court is set to hear arguments in two cases about longer prison terms for repeat offenders. (Kavanaugh's four clerks all are women, the first time that has happened.)
WATCH: WHAT'S AHEAD FOR KAVANAUGH'S FIRST SUPREME COURT TERM?
However, the upcoming Supreme Court term is "fairly benign when it comes to hot-button issues," Adam Feldman, a Supreme Court expert who runs the blog Empirical SCOTUS, told Fox News. "This makes me think that the justices were aware of [Justice Anthony] Kennedy's likely departure when they starting granting cases for this term."
On Saturday, Chief Justice John Roberts administered Kavanaugh's constitutional oath and Kennedy administered his judicial oath. Protesters outside banged on the Supreme Court's doors, with some trying to fight their way inside. Capitol Hill police, assisting U.S. Supreme Court police, have arrested hundreds of anti-Kavanaugh protesters in recent days.
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE FACES PROTESTERS INSTEAD OF USING SIDE EXIT AT CAPITOL, TELLS SECURITY DETAIL, 'LET'S DO IT'
The new justice was "caught up in a hoax that was set up by the Democrats," Trump said as he left the White House earlier Monday for a quick trip to Florida. "It was all made up, it was fabricated and it's a disgrace."

"We stood up to the mob."
— Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

The climactic 50-48 roll call vote Saturday on Kavanaugh was the closest vote to confirm a justice since 1881.
Collins, the Maine moderate Trump thanked in his opening remarks Monday, revealed on Sunday that she initially thought Kavanaugh "perhaps needed to withdraw" after she heard Christine Blasey Ford's "very compelling and painful" testimony.
But then, Collins said, "When [Kavanaugh] came back with a forceful denial, the anger and anguish he showed, and then the lack of corroboration, led me back to the fundamental issues to our legal system."
On Sunday, Collins criticized opponents' efforts to fundraise against her vote, calling them nothing more than blatant ploys to buy votes in a future election.
“They are asking me to perform an official act and if I do not do what they want, $2 million plus is going to go to my opponent. I think that if our politics has come to the point where people are trying to buy votes and buy positions, then we are in a very sad place,” Collins told CBS News' "60 Minutes."
DEMS WAGE WAR ON KAVANAUGH: WILL IMPEACHMENT THREATS GO ANYWHERE?
Ultimately, every Democrat voted against Kavanaugh except for Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a deeply red state where Kavanaugh remains highly popular. Manchin is up for re-election this year.
McConnell on Sunday praised his fellow GOP senators, who he said re-established the "presumption of innocence" in confirmation hearings.
"We stood up to the mob," he added.

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Pelosi filing FOIA request for key Kavanaugh documents, prolonging fight

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Sunday she will request that the government make public the FBI's supplemental background report into sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, indicating the Democrats' fight against Kavanaugh is not over.
In a letter to her Democratic colleagues, Pelosi said her Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request also would cover "transcripts of interviews, instructions from the White House, and any communications to the FBI from Senate Republicans regarding the scope of the investigation," production of which she said was "important to set the record straight."
The Senate narrowly confirmed Kavanaugh's appointment to the high court on Saturday, days after the FBI completed its report. In her letter, Pelosi said Kavanaugh's confirmation "has wounded the very soul of justice in our country" and called it a "dark chapter."
Democrats have complained that the bureau was not given time to thoroughly explore the allegations against Kavanaugh, which dated from his days in high school and college in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh repeatedly and emphatically denied the claims against him.
Republicans have argued that the supplemental FBI investigation instigated by wavering GOP senators and ordered by the White House turned up no corroborating witnesses to the claims and that Kavanaugh had sterling credentials for the court.
In the end, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., was the only Democrat to vote for Kavanaugh's confirmation. He expressed empathy for sexual assault victims, but said that after factoring in the FBI report, "I have found Judge Kavanaugh to be a qualified jurist who will follow the Constitution." Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska announced her opposition to Kavanaugh's confirmation but voted "present" Saturday after it became clear the judge would be confirmed.
House Democrats have pledged to investigate Kavanaugh further if they win the majority in November. In her letter, Pelosi told her colleagues to channel their disappointment at Kavanaugh's confirmation toward success at the ballot box next month.
"We must not agonize, we must organize," Pelosi wrote. "People must vote."

Former Obama official calls Susan Collins ‘fake’ feminist

Former Obama White House official Jen Psaki, appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union," derided Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, as a “fake” feminist for her support of Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed to the Supreme Court on Saturday amid allegations of sexual assault.
Collins was considered a key swing-vote until she confirmed her support for Kavanaugh during a floor speech on Friday.
"(Collins) struck a nerve to me in what she said and how she voted, because that’s political cowardice,” Psaki said on the Sunday broadcast. “That is somebody who is pretending to be a feminist but that is a fake feminism.”

You can’t say somebody is credible and then completely question their story.
— Jen Psaki 

Kavanaugh was ultimately nominated to the Supreme Court late Saturday by a narrow 50-48 margin, despite allegations that he committed sexual assault against Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor, in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.
“You can argue Democrats mishandled things, they certainly did,” Psaki added. “But this is about a woman who is accusing someone of sexual assault, something that often many, many women do not come forward to do.”

FILE: Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins is followed by members of the media as she walks to the Capitol before a vote to advance Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court.  (Associated Press)

Collins called Ford credible but said there was not enough evidence to corroborate her claims. Psaki said that people who worry about the accused miss the bigger issue that women face.
“It’s much more likely that women hold back and they don’t put these accusations forward that they don’t. That is the issue in this country, not being falsely accused,” Psaki said. “You can’t say somebody is credible and then completely question their story.”

North Korea ready to allow inspectors into missile sites, Pompeo says

U.S. Secretary of State met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Sunday in a meeting that was seen as productive. (Mike Pompeo/Twitter)

North Korea on Monday said it was ready to allow an international group of inspectors into the country’s clandestine nuclear and missile sites, a move that could be seen as more evidence in Washington and Pyongyang’s thawing relationship.
Mike Pompeo, the U.S. secretary of state, made the announcement after a Sunday meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The meeting was apparently productive, and they even discussed another summit between Kim and President Trump, Reuters reported.
Pompeo identified Punggye-ri as one of the testing sites mentioned in their conversations. The U.S.’s top diplomat retweeted Trump’s tweet touting a “good meeting” in Pyongyang.
"We continue to make progress on agreements made at Singapore Summit," Pompeo tweeted. Trump met with Kim in Singapore in June and – at the time – announced that the two countries are set to "start a new history."
The tone of the meeting was cordial. Pompeo was hit by North Korean officials a few months ago as having a “gangster-like demand for denuclearization.”
Trump also called off a meeting with Pompeo in August, due to a lag in the negotiations.
The Washington Post reported that Pompeo met with Kim for about two hours and had lunch. Kim told Pompeo as they sat down, “It’s a very nice day that promises a good future for both countries.”

Democrats to appeal to voters to channel anger over Kavanaugh confirmation

Democrats' 'blue wave' may be in jeopardy as new polls suggest the bitter confirmation battle of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh could actually help Republicans; insight from former Clinton campaign chief strategist Mark Penn.

Democratic politicians appear eager to try and channel voter anger over the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to voter turnout in November.
The realities are that Democrats have a better chance at regaining control of the House than they do the Senate. They need to win 23 more seats to take over the House. The hope is that women – already frustrated with President Trump – turn out in droves for the midterms.
"I really think this is going to drive women out to the polls in unprecedented numbers," Katie Hill, a Democratic House candidate in California, said, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, told The Journal that Christian conservatives will be happy with Trump for his Supreme Court picks, but he said the Democratic "enthusiasm in the midterms will go even higher if that’s possible."
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D- Hawaii., who was an outspoken critic of the former federal judge, told ABC’s ‘This Week’ that she is focused like a ‘laser beam’ on the upcoming elections.
"I'm very focused on the here and now, which is that all these angry women, mainly, out there who saw what was going on and how the Senate was not able to deal with the entire issue of sexual assault," she said.
The climactic 50-48 roll call on Saturday capped a fight that seized the national conversation after claims emerged that he had sexually assaulted women three decades ago — allegations he emphatically denied. Those accusations transformed the clash from a routine struggle over judicial ideology into an angry jumble of questions about victims’ rights, the presumption of innocence and personal attacks on nominees.
His confirmation provides a defining accomplishment for Trump and the Republican Party, which found a unifying force in the cause of putting a new conservative majority on the court.
Republicans will likely also use the Kavanaugh confirmation process to stir their base, pointing at what they saw as a fundamentally flawed approach Democrats took in handling sexual assault allegations against the nomination.
"Our energy and enthusiasm was lagging behind theirs [Democrats] until this," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R., Ky., told "CBS Sunday." "And I think this gave us the motivation and the opportunity to have the kind of turnout in this off-year election that would help us hold the Senate."
Some Democrats have already mentioned investigating Kavanaugh if they regain control of the House. Rep. Ted. Lieu, D-Calif., and Rep. Louis V. Gutierrez, D-Ill., called for impeachment proceedings in the event that an investigation proved Kavanaugh lied while in front of Congress.
That investigation, Democrats have said, could well lead to impeachment proceedings. Federal judges can be impeached by a simple majority of the House, but actually removing Justice Kavanaugh from the bench would then require a two-thirds vote of the Senate -- an extraordinarily unlikely scenario. No sitting U.S. Supreme Court justice has ever been removed from the bench using this mechanism.
Some Democrats appear to flinch at the prospect of seeking impeachment.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was asked about the prospects of impeaching Kavanaugh, and she said it “would not be my plan.”
“I have enough people on my back wanting us to impeach the president,” Pelosi said, according to The Times.
Alan Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter professor of law, Emeritus, at Harvard, wrote on Fox News that he hopes Democrats take over the House in November, and they act “as an appropriate check and balance on the other branches rather than as a revenge-driven Javert, the villain of “Les Miserables,” obsessed with righting past wrongs rather than preventing future ones.”
Fox News' Gregg Re and The Associated Press contributed to this report

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Trump, at Kansas rally, praises Kavanaugh, slams Democrats

President Trump spoke at a rally in Kansas on Saturday night, praising his newly confirmed Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh while also slamming Democrats and urging people to vote Republican in the upcoming midterm elections.
Upon taking the stage, Trump told the crowd in Topeka that he was "thrilled" to be with them on a "truly historic night."
The president was in Kansas to support Kris Kobach, the GOP nominee for governor, as well as political newcomer Steve Watkins, a Republican seeking to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins.
The president praised Republican senators and Kavanaugh, calling him "a man of great character and intellect," while also condemning Democrats for what he described as their "disgraceful campaign" against him.
"The radical Democrats have turned into an angry mob" who have thrown to the side "every notion of fairness, of justice, of decency and of due process," Trump said.
He went on to urge the crowd to go to the polls next month, telling them they "have a chance to stop the radical Democrats" by electing Republicans to Congress.
"The Democrats are willing to cause such destruction in the pursuit of power, just imagine the devastation they would cause if they ever obtained the power they so desperately want and crave," Trump said.
He also applauded GOP Sens. Chuck Grassley and Mitch McConnell, saying both are "great," as well as Sen. Susan Collins, who announced her support for Kavanaugh on Friday in a 40-minute speech on the Senate floor.
"How good was Sen. Susan Collins yesterday?," Trump asked the crowd.
During a post-rally interview on Fox News' "Justice with Judge Jeanine," host Jeanine Pirro asked Trump about controversial comments he made earlier this week at a rally in Mississippi, questioning the sexual assault allegations made by Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford.
"Well, there were a lot of things happening that weren’t correct. They weren’t true. And there were a lot of things that were left unsaid. And I thought I had to even the playing field because it was very unfair to judge -- now I can, you know, very nicely say Justice Kavanaugh," Trump said. "It was a very unfair situation. So I evened the playing field. And once I did that, it started to sail through. He was treated very, very unfairly."
Earlier Saturday, the Senate voted 50-48, mostly along party lines, to confirm Kavanaugh to the nation’s highest court.
During the rally, the president also accused Democrats of supporting sanctuary cities and of wanting to strip funding from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
"Democrats also support deadly sanctuary cities that release violent predators and bloodthirsty killers, like MS-13, into our communities," Trump said. "Republicans believe our country should be a sanctuary for law-abiding Americans, not criminal aliens."
He said members of the GOP "stand proudly" with law enforcement, Border Patrol and ICE, who he added are "not treated properly."
"MS-13 doesn’t like ICE. That’s why I like ICE," Trump said.
Separately, Trump took aim at a few Democrats, including Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the latter of whom he referred to as "Pocahontas" because of her claims of Native American ancestry.
"I’ve got more Indian blood in me than Pocahontas -- and I’ve got none," Trump said.
Following the rally, Warren fired back at Trump on Twitter.
"Hey @realDonaldTrump, hope you’re having fun at your rally. Too bad you’re the least popular incumbent president in modern history," she tweeted. "And in the meantime, we are coming for your pathetic rubber-stamp Republicans in Congress in 31 days."
Fox News’ Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report.