Dark Money Groups Demand Kavanaugh Recuse from CFPB Case

Several progressive groups, including Allied Progress and Demand Justice, two liberal dark money groups, have set a target on Justice Brett Kavanaugh as they aim to have him recuse himself from the case involving the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Board (CFPB).

During his tenure as a federal appeals court judge in Washington, Kavanaugh argued that the bureau’s structure was unconstitutional. According to the groups, Kavanaugh will have difficulty ruling impartially in the case, known as Seila Law v. CFPB, which is set to be argued in the early days of March 2020.

“We call on Justice Kavanaugh to recuse himself from hearing a case on which he has already made up his mind,” Demand Justice, Demand Progress Education Fund, the Revolving Door Project and Allied Progress wrote in a statement.

“The law clearly states that judges should recuse themselves when their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Brett Kavanaugh has already ruled on the underlying legal question in this case. He cannot plausibly claim to be open to arguments from both sides,” the groups added.

In a 2016 opinion and a 2018 dissent, Kavanaugh shared his views on the bureau, saying in 2016, “We therefore hold that the CFPB is unconstitutionally structured.”

The bureau is challenged by Seila Law, a California-based firm that claims the independence of the agency’s director falls out of line with the Constitution’s separation of powers.

In 2016, Kavanaugh said the “concentration of massive, unchecked power in a single Director marks a dramatic departure from settled historical practice and makes the CFPB unique among independent agencies.”

Two years later, after his opinion, Kavanaugh was inclined to write a dissent reaffirming his belief that the structure of the agency was unconstitutional after the full court overturned his decision. The groups stated:

In PHH, Kavanaugh offered a more than 70-page long dissent which he told the Senate constituted one of the most ‘significant constitutional opinions’ of his judicial career. Kavanaugh’s personal reputational interest in seeing that bitter dissent against a bipartisan majority be vindicated by the Supreme Court is considerable.

Scott Walter, President of the Capital Research Center, joined SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Saturday over the weekend, where he discussed the “laughable” leftist organizations’ case against Kavanaugh.

“Usually the lefty groups are better than this,” Walter told host Matthew Boyle. “This one’s really laughable because apparently CNBC thinks it’s a national news story if four guys around the water cooler decide to issue a letter together.”

“Of those four organizations, three of the four are all run by Arabella Advisors, which is the peak of this gigantic dark money pyramid on the left. In 2018, they ran $635 million through their empire,” Walter continued. “Three of their hundred little pop-up groups that don’t have their own legal existence signed onto this letter.”

Walter also offered some insight into what Arabella Advisors, which pushes the interests of wealthy leftist donors, truly is.

“It has four in-house non-profits,” Walter said. “Those four non-profits, in turn, create hundreds, literally hundreds, of pop-up groups. Used when needed and then discarded when not needed.”

“They get lots of Soros money in various ways, for instance Demand Justice, one of the Arabella groups that’s the noisiest critic of Kavanaugh, they got millions in Soros money instantly as soon as they stood up the little fake pop-up,” Walter said.

Walter concluded his remarks on Arabella by referring to its antics as “leftist privilege.”