In excerpts from an opening statement emphasizing his own impartiality and desire to be a “team player,” Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh name-drops Merrick Garland, whose lack of seat on the bench is still a sore spot for many Democrats.
“I have served with 17 other judges, each of them a colleague and a friend, on a court now led by our superb chief judge, Merrick Garland,” Kavanaugh will say at the opening of the confirmation hearings Tuesday morning.
In the statement, he also goes out of his way to emphasize his neutrality.
“A good judge must be an umpire—a neutral and impartial arbiter who favors no litigant or policy,” he says in the prepared statement. “I don’t decide cases based on personal or policy preferences. I am not a pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant judge. I am not a pro-prosecution or pro-defense judge. I am a pro-law judge.”