Thousands of dollars cashed by Kavanaugh on baseball tickets

The catchy numbers – tens of thousands of baseball tickets! – do not just show how much the hobby of America has become expensive. They also shed light on Kavanaugh's own financial situation and the deadly contours of a high-stakes confirmation bout, and the question of how he paid off the debt so quickly.

The most important and curious question is not how Kavanaugh accumulated the debts attributed to the baseball tickets, but how he paid them. It's odd to imagine that a man of relatively modest means would put tens of thousands of dollars on credit cards to buy baseball tickets, but even stranger than they would have been paid if quick. The White House says that Kavanaugh's friends have repaid the tickets and that he no longer buys them. It is no less true that Kavanaugh has suddenly released at least $ 60,000 and up to $ 200,000 of mysterious debt in one year – enough money for senators to know who the sources were. payments.

impossible, to accumulate so much ticket debt in such a short time. Tickets for the full season, the 81 home games for Canadians, can reach thousands of dollars for a single seat. (Kavanaugh, whose current job as a judge at the DC Circuit Appeals Court is very demanding, would find time to attend many baseball games – not to mention a calendar 81 games – another mystery.) At the highest prices, this could translate into about $ 35,000 per year for a single seat, although most tickets are much cheaper. A renewed subscription holder at the highest price would pay about $ 9,000 a year.

These figures could jeopardize Kavanaugh's salary. His revelations show that if he was confirmed, he would have the smallest net worth of any justice. Getting the concert would probably inflate his badets. As a judge on the D.C. circuit, he earns $ 220,600 a year, which would raise up to $ 255,300 to the Supreme Court. He could also benefit from other benefits: Judge Sonia Sotomayor got an advance of more than $ 1 million after joining the court.

These wages are high by national standards (nearly seven times the median national personal income), but not the norms of the rarefied circles in which Kavanaugh travels, as his poverty suggests in relation to seated judges. Many powerful lawyers go through the revolving door between the private and public sectors – working for a while in the government to gain prestige and establish political relationships, then spend time in law firms to win huge salaries. Kavanaugh went from law school to clerk for federal judges (including Judge Anthony Kennedy, whom he is appointed to replace), and then joined the investigation of Ken Starr's independent attorney on the Clinton administration. From there, he went to work briefly at Kirkland and Ellis, but did not spend much time before joining the George W. Bush White House. After holding several jobs, he went straight to the court of appeal.