On paper, Brett Michael Kavanaugh may be the most qualified Supreme Court nominee in generations.
Like Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas, he has served on the second-most powerful court in the nation. Like Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch, he brings more than a decade's experience as a federal appeals court judge. And like Justice Elena Kagan, he has worked at the side of a two-term president.
But Kavanaugh's 12 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, combined with his Yale pedigree, Supreme Court clerkship under retiring Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy and top posts under President George W. Bush, give him a résumé the court's current justices can't match.
It may be in his blood: Even his mother, Martha, became a Maryland state judge a quarter-century ago.
"I have interviewed many candidates for the federal bench, including Roberts and Alito," said Bush's former attorney general, Alberto Gonzales. "There is no question in my mind regarding Brett for the Supreme Court. He has a track record that demonstrates his talents and his judicial philosophy."
More than anyone else in conservative legal circles today, Kavanaugh, 53, has been viewed as a Supreme Court justice-in-waiting. While waiting, he has written some 300 opinions and sent 41 of his law clerks to similar posts at the high court — far more than any of his competitors for the nomination.