One of the tensest moments of President Donald Trump’s tenure was the Supreme Court confirmation battle over now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The establishment favorite was nominated by the White House and was within days of a vote. That’s when allegations of sexual assault exploded onto the scene.

That culminated with the largely discredited but highly charged public testimony of Christine Blasey Ford. Eventually, Kavanaugh would be confirmed, but what was so unique about the response at the time is just how fiercely Republicans unified to ensure that happened.

Unfortunately, that vigor ignored many warnings about how Kavanaugh might actually operate once on the bench, something that got largely ignored in the fight to ensure the left didn’t win. Those warnings appear to have been prescient.

Kavanaugh, in the majority keeping the moratorium in place, says he agrees the CDC went too far and that congressional authorization would be necessary for the moratorium to go beyond July 31. (In other words, he says he'd flip his vote if the CDC extends it again.)

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) June 29, 2021

Kavanaugh joined Chief Justice Roberts, whose treachery is hardly a surprise at this point, along with the three (far-left) liberals to greenlight the CDC’s so-called eviction moratorium. The rest of us mere normals call it property theft, blessed by the government with zero compensation or recourse.

What’s striking here is how arbitrary Kavanaugh’s decision is. He claims that the moratorium is all good unless it extends past July 31st. Then, he claims, the CDC would need Congressional authorization. But why? What is so special about the date? Why is constitutional for the government to force you to allow someone to steal your property for over a year, but only until July 31st?

Whether I or others understand every legal nook and cranny of this decision is irrelevant. You don’t need a law degree to understand that is unconstitutional and wrong for the government to tell you that you must allow someone to steal your property. The CDC never had any grounds to make such an order and they certainly don’t have grounds in June of 2021 to continue it. Yet, that’s what Kavanaugh found because, in my opinion, he’s obviously not operating based on the law, but as a matter of “compassion” and pragmatism. That’s not how any of this is supposed to work, and in no way is that justice.

Republicans need to learn a hard lesson. It is not enough for Mitch McConnell — or even Donald Trump — to give their stamp of approval to someone. Confirmation hearings should not be theater by which the nominating party’s senators handle nominees with kid gloves. Republicans should have been grilling Kavanaugh during his first hearing because the questions were there. They were warned.

Now, we are stuck with John Roberts Jr. spitting in the face of those who laid everything on the line to get him confirmed. If Kavanaugh can’t be counted on to protect basic property rights, he certainly can’t be counted on to protect gun rights when that landmark case gets decided next year. And no, I’m not suggesting Kavanaugh rule based purely on politics. That he’s currently doing so is precisely the problem.

This is what happens when you stick yet another beltway lifer on the court. In the future, Republicans have to think outside the box regarding who they nominate. I don’t care what the Federalist Society says.