Sen. Susan Collins said she hadn’t read the email herself but that, based on what she knows about it, it might not be the bombshell Democrats are hoping it would be. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images Murkowski, Collins face new abortion pressure on Kavanaugh

A newly released email by Brett Kavanaugh, weighing in on the future of abortion rights, is putting new pressure on two moderate Republicans who hold the keys to his confirmation.

But Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine aren’t raising concerns yet.


With just 51 GOP senators, the duo’s votes and generally pro-abortion rights views will be central to Kavanaugh’s confirmation as Democratic senators continue to withhold their votes for President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick. And Democrats and their outside-group allies began a new offensive aimed at Collins and Murkowski on Thursday, after the release of a 2003 email in which Kavanaugh edits an op-ed draft in order to raise doubts over whether the Supreme Court would respect the precedent of abortion rights.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said “this new document confirms our worst fears” about Kavanaugh’s view of abortion.

Collins said she hadn’t read the email herself, but that, based on what she knows about it, it might not be the bombshell Democrats are hoping it would be.

“I am told that he was editing an op-ed for clarity and was merely stating a fact that three judges on the court were anti-Roe,” Collins said. “If that’s the case then, and it’s not expressing his view, then I’m not sure what the point is.”

Collins said in a follow-up that she would review the Kavanaugh email over the weekend. She’s said she would oppose a nominee who demonstrates “hostility” to Roe v. Wade, but said that, after meeting privately with Kavanaugh in August, he had done nothing to make her think he was hostile and told her that the decision is “settled law.”

As she walked out of a GOP lunch, Murkowski declined to discuss the email. An aide said she hasn’t seen it and will review it over the weekend.

In the email, Kavanaugh received a draft opinion piece that said Roe v. Wade is “widely accepted by legal scholars across the board” as “settled law of the land.” Kavanaugh wrote back to say he’s “not sure” about that since the “Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so.”

Asked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) about the document, Kavanaugh replied on Thursday that he thought the original draft “was overstating something about legal scholars.”

“And I’m always concerned with accuracy, and I thought that was not quite accurate description of legal — all legal scholars, because it referred to ‘all.’ To your point, your broader point, Roe v. Wade is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. It’s been reaffirmed many times,” Kavanaugh said.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Demand Justice immediately launched ads in Maine and Alaska papers with a faux newspaper headline raising the prospect of women being jailed for seeking abortions following Kavanaugh’s confirmation. And Planned Parenthood Action Fund executive vice president Dawn Laguens said the email rendered Kavanaugh’s previous statements “meaningless.”

“In his own words, the Supreme Court ‘can always overrule its precedent,’” she said. “There is no doubt that a vote for Brett Kavanaugh is a vote to erode the constitutional right to abortion.”

Elana Schor contributed to this report.

