Watching Elena Kagan’s performance at her confirmation hearings yesterday, I could see why many find her charming. Her answer to Lindsay Graham’s question about what she was doing on Christmas was delivered in a classic,self deprecating manner Ronald Reagan would have been proud of.
On the opposite side of the spectrum we have this from Almost Midnight in the West, also posted on Flopping Aces, she is believed to be the Devil incarnate:
Kagan lied to Supreme Court in 9/11 case, should be disbarred
[…]
As Obama’s solicitor general, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan urged the Court to dismiss the suit that our 9/11 families have been pressing against the Saudi government and several Saudi princes for their extensive funding of al Qaeda. The families sued under the domestic tort exception to sovereign immunity, which according to Kagan’s Supreme Court brief (at p. 14):
requires not merely that the foreign state’s extraterritorial conduct have some causal connection to tortious injury in the United States, but that “the tortious act or omission of that foreign state or of any official or employee” be committed within the United States. 28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(5).The “tortious act or omission” is the wrongful act (the tort) that leads to the injury. Thus she is claiming that for Saudi funding of al Qaeda to be actionable, the funding itself has to have been transacted within the United States. Compare this with the actual wording of 28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(5):
(a) A foreign state shall not be immune from the jurisdiction of courts of the United States or of the States in any case – … (5) … in which money damages are sought against a foreign state for personal injury or death, or damage to or loss of property, occurring in the United States and caused by the tortious act or omission of that foreign state or of any official or employee of that foreign state while acting within the scope of his office or employment…”
Contrary to Kagan’s assertion, the law only specifies that the injury has to have occurred within the United States. Not a word about the wrongful act that leads to domestic injury also having to have taken place within the United. Kagan flat lied about the clear wording of a law that goes to the very heart of our ability to use the courts to combat Islamic terrorism, and thanks to the Court’s failure to review this crucial case, the simple wording and intent of Congress—that foreign states whose actions do injury in the United States can be sued for those injuries—has now been undone, as if the law had never been passed.
“Oops!… I did it again”
Kagan proves that her lie was self conscious by also lying about the relevant Supreme Court precedent, claiming (again at p. 14): [ …]
So what’s the truth about Kagan? I don’t know, but I believe her to be imminently educable! No doubt she is brilliant. To bad all those silly, ill conceived Progressive ideas are floating around in her head.
Who knows, maybe hanging around with Judges Roberts and Alito will help bring her back to the center. Like I said, she is educable. She has to potential to be one of the Supreme Court’s great judges, if only ….
