WASHINGTON – Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Tuesday he’s satisfied an Amarillo judge who tried to halt distribution of an FDA-approved abortion drug did not mislead the Senate by removing his name from an article bashing Obama administration efforts to protect those seeking abortions.
“What I was told yesterday is that it had been alleged that he had failed to disclose an article that he had actually published,” Cornyn said. “It turns out that’s not the case. And so Judge (Matthew) Kacsmaryk has done nothing wrong.”
The Washington Post reported that Kacsmaryk submitted the article to a Texas law review in early 2017 and later asked his name be replaced by two colleagues at his legal group, Plano-based First Liberty Institute. Kacsmaryk was under consideration for a federal judgeship when he made that request.
The uproar over the law review article carries particular significance in light of the injunction Kacsmaryk recently issued on FDA approval of mifepristone, a drug commonly used in early pregnancy abortions.
Asked about the story on Monday, Cornyn opined that nominees should not hide articles they have written from senators.
“The process only works if we … have candor and truthful answers. So that’s significant,” Cornyn said.
Former and current staff at First Liberty said Kacsmaryk’s name was only meant as a “placeholder” on the law review article. The Post cited an unnamed source who questioned those accounts.
Cornyn did not get into details on Tuesday but said he is now satisfied Kacsmaryk was not the author and therefore did not mislead senators.
“It appears that the premise was wrong, that he had authored a paper that he had failed to disclose,” Cornyn said. “Turns out he did not author that paper when it was published.”
Both Cornyn and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, are members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that vets nominees to the federal bench. Both voted to confirm Kacsmaryk in 2019 after then-President Donald Trump nominated him to the federal bench.
Cruz asserted that Kacsmaryk was unfairly targeted by Democrats and the news media.
The article Kacsmaryk submitted argued against Obama administration rules related to both transgender people and abortion. One passage said religious doctors “cannot use their scalpels to make female what God created male” and “cannot use their pens to prescribe or dispense abortifacient drugs designed to kill unborn children.”
If the article had been published under Kacsmaryk’s name, and disclosed to senators, opponents almost certainly would have used it to cast his social views as outside the mainstream.
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