Is Kagan A Liar

A solicitor general represents the presidency before the Supreme Court. Elena Kagan represented the Obama Administration as Solicitor General. She has maintained that she would decline to participate in deliberations that she worked on while she was the Solicitor General, but refuses to indicate whether that included challenges to the Obama Health Care Law.

Constitutional challenges to the Health Care Law were raised for several months preceding President Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Multiple states filed suit to stop the the Obama Health Care Plan. Ms Kagan insists she did not participate in conferring with the White House on the health care bill.

Senator Jeff Sessions the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, expressed a logical reaction to the inevitable sequence of events:

“It is all but inconceivable that, when the states challenged the new health care law in March 2010, Ms. Kagan did not participate as counsel or adviser to the administration on the matter, or express her opinion on the case’s merits at that time,”

Mr Sessions and six other Republicans on the Judiciary Committee wrote a letter, asking Ms Kagan detailed questions concerning her involvement in discussions concerning the law. During her confirmation hearings, Ms Kagan stated that she was asked briefly about the issue, but insisted that she had not expressed an opinion on the legislation or the challenges; a rather odd statement, since it is precisely her job description to represent and advise the White House on the viability of such legislation in respect to the Constitution and the legal challenges.

Recently released Justice Department Documents are in contradiction to her confirmation testimony: forty-nine Republican Congressional House members have beseeched the House Judiciary Committee to “promptly investigate” Supreme Curt Justice Elena Kagan’s role in preparing a defense for Obama’s health care law while she was Solicitor General.

Forty-nine house Republicans wrote a letter last Tuesday to committee Chairman Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas and the committee’s ranking Democrat, John Conyers Jr., from Michigan, it read that recently released Justice Department documents have placed Kagan’s testimony in doubt:

contradictory to her 2010 confirmation testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, actively participated with her Obama administration colleagues in formulating a defense

The House members maintain that the documents raise “serious questions” concerning Kagan’s ability to “exercise objectivity” in any and every case involving the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that comes before the Supreme Court. The question of honesty and integrity should also be addressed, but Americans have no faith in the moral integrity or the honesty of the Obama White House and the Holder Justice Department.

Rep. John Fleming, Louisiana Republican:

“Determining the extent of Justice Kagan’s involvement is imperative for Americans to have confidence in the impartiality of the Supreme Court,” said Mr. Fleming, a doctor. “Americans have a legitimate right to know the truth.

“If Obamacare is such a great law, like President Obama claims, then why are there dozens of lawsuits pending in the courts against it?” he said. “The reason is the law is fundamentally unconstitutional, and it is just a matter of time before it begins to unravel.”

If the Holder/Obama Justice Department is used as an example, we may assume that honesty and objectivity in the court is no longer considered to be a fundamental part of the process and that Kagan may have been selected solely on her opinions regarding the Obama Health Care issue and the American public should prepare to be railroaded once again by Chicago Machine tactics. What conclusions are Americans expected to draw if a Supreme Court Justice lies during confirmation testimony.

In the letter, the lawmakers said the law establishes “unambiguous conditions on which federal judges must recuse themselves from proceedings in which their impartiality might be reasonably questioned.” They said that under the law, a justice should recuse in cases where they “served in government employment and in such capacity participated as counsel, advisor or material witness concerning the proceedings or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy.”

“Even from the limited number of DOJ emails released to date through the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, it is evident that Justice Kagan was involved in PPACA defense activities to a degree that warrants her disqualification from related proceedings as specified” by the law, the letter said.

Most of the released documents concerning Kagan’s involvement in Obama’s health care legislation were obtained and released in May by Judicial Watch, through a Freedom of Information Lawsuit.

Now the Justice Department is trying to backpedal and is in damage control mode. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler:

“During her tenure, former Solicitor General Elena Kagan did not play any substantive role in litigation challenging health care reform legislation, and the documents that were released reflect that.”

It is interesting that so many congressional members disagree. Kagan was sworn in to the Supreme Court on August 7, 2010. Because of her role as Solicitor General, she has recused herself from 25 of 51 cases the court accepted through December. Ms Kagan maintained that she would recuse herself on any cases brought to the Supreme Court on a case by case basis. She also maintained in written responses that she had no involvement in developing the government’s legal responses to to the health care law and was never asked her views; however, if as the documents portray that she lied, the American public will rightly assume she was lying concerning her own integrity in judging whether it is suitable for her to hear the challenges to the president’s health care Constitutionality.

Is this the sentence that will be the basis for Kagan’s impeachment:

“I attended at least one meeting where the existence of the litigation was briefly mentioned, but none where any substantive discussion of the litigation occurred,”

Forty-nine house members are more than a little concerned that the “Fix” is on. Senate Republicans sent a series of questions on whether she had been asked her opinion, offered her opinion read or reviewed filings of the case, approved a document. The Obama Administration and the Holder Justice Department have destroyed any faith in the honesty of those two branches of government. The Kagan affair looks like there will be further reasons to distrust the Obama White House and now the integrity of the Supreme Court. If these documents portray Kagan as a liar, and there appears as if that might be the case, the only way to resolve this issue will be to impeach her. For there was only one reason not to be honest about the issue and that was to stack the court in favor of ruling for the Obama White House on the health care issue.