CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin: Judge Kavanaugh ‘Got the Better’ of Cory Booker

CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said Thursday that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh got the better of Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) when grilling the judge on hypotheticals about whether he would recuse from matters that “do not require recusal.”

Transcript is as follows:

BLITZER: Jeffrey Toobin, you listened closely — how did Judge Kavanaugh do?

TOOBIN: What Senator Booker was trying to do was associate Donald Trump with Brett Kavanaugh and say, in effect, ‘since he will have appointed you, should you get out of any case in which he is principally involved?’ Now, that would be a good argument I think if Kavanaugh had come out of the Trump administration, in the way that he came out of the Bush administration to go onto the D.C. Circuit. But, he’s been a judge for twelve years. Every justice on the Supreme Court was appointed by some president and that doesn’t mean they have to recuse themselves regarding everything regarding that president. I think ultimately Judge Kavanaugh got the better of that exchange because the mere fact of appointment does not require recusal.  That’s never been the rule of the Supreme Court.