This requires context.

At the same hearing, the judge declined to directly answer questions by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, as to whether he believed the 1973 ruling was “correct law.”

Other comments by Judge Kavanaugh have given abortion rights supporters pause. Last year, he cited Roe v. Wade as an example of former Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s “massive and enduring impact on American law.” Chief Justice Rehnquist had dissented in the case.

In a March 2003 email, Judge Kavanaugh also appeared to question whether the abortion rights case was indeed “settled law.” In congressional testimony, he defended that email as being concerned with accuracy, and he is correct that some legal scholars do not view the case as settled law.

Executive Privilege

At his initial confirmation hearing in September, Judge Kavanaugh told Ms. Feinstein that he believed a 1974 ruling, United States v. Nixon, was “one of the four greatest moments in Supreme Court history.” In it, the court ruled that the president could not invoke executive privilege to block a subpoena from the Watergate special prosecutor to turn over audiotapes of White House conversations.

Democrats have pointed to remarks Judge Kavanaugh made about the case to suggest he would shield President Trump from a similar subpoena.

This requires context.

Judge Kavanaugh accurately noted that he had praised the decision. He referred to it in a 2016 law review article, stating that the “greatest moments in American judicial history have been when judges stood up to the other branches, were not cowed, and enforced the law.” He also heralded it as “one of the two most significant cases in which the Judiciary stood up to the president” in a 2014 law review article.

But the judge has also questioned the Nixon ruling. In a 1999 round-table discussion, he drew a direct link between court rulings during the investigation of President Bill Clinton and the Supreme Court decision against Richard Nixon. He posed the possibility that the Nixon case “was wrongly decided — heresy though it is to say so.” He also said, “Maybe the tension of the time led to an erroneous decision.”

And he even raised the possibility that it should be overturned. “I’m curious to know what people who are upset by the recent privilege decisions think about the Supreme Court’s ruling in Nixon,” Judge Kavanaugh said during the discussion. “Should United States v. Nixon be overruled on the ground that the case was a nonjusticiable intra-branch dispute? Maybe so.”