The constitutional principles mandating Kavanaugh’s recusal were given form in three recent Supreme Court decisions. The first, Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Company, Inc., concerned recusal obligations of a newly elected West Virginia state supreme court judge in an appeal of an award of damages against the company of a coal baron. The businessman had provided pivotal support to the judge’s campaign while the lawsuit was pending in a lower court. Emphasizing the “significant and disproportionate influence” of the coal baron in placing the judge on the court, the U.S. Supreme Court required recusal based on “serious risk of actual bias” that arises when “a man chooses the judge in his own cause.”

Sound familiar? It should. It’s eerily similar to the Trump-Kavanaugh nomination, where, to put it mildly, President Donald Trump played a singular role in selecting a judge for a court that likely will have the final word on numerous legal issues in which Trump’s personal stake could not be higher, such as whether a president can be criminally indicted, can be charged with obstructing justice, or can pardon himself.