Susan Collins 'had to know this day was coming' when she voted for Kavanaugh and Gorsuch: CNN legal expert
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) has become a target after the judges she supported brought down women's reproductive rights and healthcare privacy.
Speaking to CNN's Jim Acosta on Saturday, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin explained that it was due to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who stopped former President Barack Obama from being able to appoint a justice to the Supreme Court for almost a year.
"Totally. It's broader than that. The credit or responsibility for the Dobbs decision depending on how you view it goes to Mitch McConnell as much as it goes to Donald Trump. He is the one that prevented Merrick Garland from replacing Anton Scalia. He is the one that pushed through Brett Kavanaugh in spite of the sexual [assault] allegation. He jammed through Amy Coney Barrett in an abbreviated process. Those are the three Trump justices, two if not all three of them wouldn't be on the court but for Mitch McConnell. He is one of the absolutely central figures in the history of the modern Supreme Court."
Acosta brought up Collins as well, showing the video of an interview she did with CNN saying that she believed Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh when they looked her in the eye and said that they believed Roe v. Wade was settled law and legal precedent. Both men lied to the Senate under oath, which could be prosecuted and result in jail time.
"Are you 100 percent certain? Without a doubt that Brett Kavanaugh will not overturn Roe v. Wade?" Dana Bash asked Collins.
"I do not believe that Brett Kavanaugh will overturn..." Collins said.
She also released a statement saying the same, that she believed Kavanaugh because he "believes that precedent 'is not just a judicial policy ... it is constitutionally dictated.'"
Acosta noted that Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett all gave assurances that they wouldn't overturn such a precedent and yet they did.
"You know, the — it's hard to know where to start," Toobin began. "Susan Collins is nominally an Independent Republican, but who does what Mitch McConnell wants when he needs her. She voted against Amy Coney Barrett because Mitch McConnell didn't need her vote. But he really needed her vote on Brett Kavanaugh. So, I don't know if Susan Collins was really believing Brett Kavanaugh or she was just giving herself a fig leaf to do Mitch McConnell's bidding, as she frequently does in tight circumstances. As for the justices themselves, you know, they were playing a game to get on the Supreme Court. All three of them are lawyers. So, if you parse their words carefully, the way lawyers know how to speak, they did not explicitly promise to uphold Roe v. Wade. They left the impression they would uphold Roe v. Wade, which was enough for Susan Collins. This was a game they were playing, but those of us who studied the reports of Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, the Biden campaign, knew this day was coming. And Susan Collins had to know it too because anyone with any sense had to know it was coming. But it did and here we are."
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