Kavanaugh says no one has too much federal power

The Supreme Court justice spoke at an event honoring his ex-boss Kenneth Starr.

- By Mark SHERMAN

JUSTICES Kavanaugh, left, and Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump, former Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh says the genius of the American system of government is that no one should have too much power, even as he and other conservatives on the Supreme Court are facing criticism for deferring repeatedly to President Trump.

Invoking the list of grievances against King George III that the nation’s founders included in the Declaration of Independence, Kavanaugh said Thursday the framers of the Constitution were set on avoiding the concentration of power.

“And the framers recognized in a way that I think is brilliant, that preserving liberty requires separating the power. No one person or group of people should have too much power in our system,” Kavanaugh said at an event honoring his onetime boss, Kenneth Starr, a former federal judge and solicitor general celebrated by conservatives who died in 2022.

Trump's aggressive effort to remake the federal government did not come up inside a gymnasium on the campus of McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas.

Across the street from the event, though, several dozen protesters offered a different view of Kavanaugh and Trump.

“Basically, the Supreme Court has handed the country to Trump,” said J.W. LaStrape, head of the Baylor University Democrats, who was among the protesters.