If the Washington Nationals wind up with a case before the U.S. Supreme Court — the MASN revenue dispute with the Baltimore Orioles, for example — they might soon have a die-hard fan voting on the case.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh, appointed to the high court this week by President Trump pending Senate approval, apparently is enough of a Nats fan to have gone into debt over love of watching Bryce Harper, Ryan Zimmerman and Max Scherzer.
According to a report Wednesday in The Washington Post based on his financial disclosure forms, Judge Kavanaugh incurred tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt, which the White House attributed to a desire to see curly W’s in person.
White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah told The Post that Judge Kavanaugh bought season tickets and playoff tickets for himself and a “handful” of friends, which, along with some home improvements, accounted for most of that debt. The 81-game season ticket packages run as high as $6,000 each for the best seats at Nationals Park.
The actual disclosure forms themselves do not require an explanation of the source of debts.
“In 2016, Kavanaugh reported having between $60,000 to $200,000 in debt accrued over three credit cards and a personal loan. Each credit card held between $15,000 to $50,000 in debt, and a Thrift Savings Plan loan was between $15,000 to $50,000,” the Post reported, going on to explain that the accounts were in 2017 either cleared or reduced to less than what federal disclosure rules require.
According to Mr. Shah, Judge Kavanaugh’s friends have reimbursed him for their share of the tickets and he also no longer purchases the season tickets.
Reaction to the Post story by conservatives on Twitter was rather negative.
Matthew Schmitz, a senior editor at First Things magazine, asked “is the problem that he’s not rich or that he likes baseball?”
James Hasson, a former Army captain and law-school graduate who writes for the conservative site The Federalist, also referred to an earlier Post story and said “the only thing these reports have done is make me want to get a beer with the guy.”
“So far, WaPo’s reported that Kavanaugh: (1) joked about keg stands and drinking on the beach in high school. (2) Used his credit card to buy a lot of baseball tickets for himself and his friends and paid it off the next year. …is the scandal that he seems normal and relatable? Is the fact that he’s not a millionaire and would have the lowest net worth on the Supreme Court supposed to make average Americans think less of him? Pretty sure the effect would be the opposite,” he wrote over two tweets.
But Daniel Foster, a contributing editor at National Review Online, “agreed” with the story and insisted that “we deserve a Supreme Court Justice who isn’t bought and paid for by Big Pretzel.”
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.