Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and national press secretary Brian Fallon on her plane at Westchester County Airport in White Plains, N.Y., on Oct. 3, 2016. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
A lobbying effort to remove Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh from a summer teaching job at George Mason University is being backed by a former top aide to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Brian Fallon, Clinton’s 2016 campaign press secretary, is leading a liberal advocacy group dubbed Demand Justice “that aims to influence the political leanings of America’s courts” by opposing conservative nominees. According to his LinkedIn account, Fallon is the executive director of the group.
He was also an aide to then-President Barack Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), according to his Twitter profile.
Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch (L) and Brett Kavanaugh attend the State of the Union address in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington on Feb. 5, 2019. (Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images)
Demand Justice is running an advertising campaign on Facebook to target students at the university in order to pressure the school to reverse their recent decision to have Kavanaugh teach a course this summer.
“Demand Justice will run digital ads on Facebook targeted specifically at people with a connection to the Virginia university,” a report on their website stated.
The advertisements asks students to sign a Change.org petition that calls for the school to “Terminate AND void ALL contracts and affiliation with Brett Kavanaugh at George Mason University.”
The petition also calls for, among other demands, a “formal apology” from the administration, a public release of all documents relating to the hiring, and to hold a town hall to discuss Kavanaugh’s hiring and the implications for students.
President Donald Trump announces Judge Brett Kavanaugh as his nominee for associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States at the White House on July 9, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
Demand Justice is a project of advocacy organization group “Sixteen Thirty Fund” that uses its funds to provide grants to progressive organizations, according to Influence Watch. The practice of giving such grants is known as “dark money.” The group acts mainly through media campaigns that are either against or for a judicial nominee.
Demand Justice, created in early 2018, shares the same building with New Venture Fund, “a prominent left-wing incubation group,” and an affiliate of Sixteen Thirty Fund, according to Influence Watch.
In response to the reports surrounding Kavanaugh’s hiring, the president of George Mason University said in a statement that he wouldn’t remove Kavanaugh from his summer teaching job.
“I respect the views of people who disagreed with Justice Kavanaugh’s Senate confirmation due to questions raised about his sexual conduct in high school. But he was confirmed and is now a sitting Justice,” President Ángel Cabrera said in a statement.
“The law school has determined that the involvement of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice contributes to making our law program uniquely valuable for our students. And I accept their judgment.”
Kavanaugh and professor Jennifer Mascott are scheduled to teach a course in Runnymede, England, on the “origins and creation of the U.S. Constitution.”
In one of its video campaigns, Demand Justice accused Neomi Rao, Trump’s nominee to take Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s previous position, of being a “hard right, conservative ideologue” and said she had no business to take the position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The video was posted Feb. 27 on the group’s Twitter account. Rao was sworn in on March 18.
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