Why did Anthony Kennedy resign?

The title of this post doesn't meant that I'm about to sic Rover on the former Supreme Court Justice. I am, however, taking my place among those who suspect that Kennedy was forced out to put Kavanaugh in.

Snopes has looked into the theory that Kennedy was forced to resign in order to protect his son, who plays a key role in the scandal-ridden Deutsche Bank. Naturally, and correctly, Snopes considers this theory unproven -- but even an unproven theory can have some evidence in its favor.

The most coherent form of the conspiracy theory posited that Kennedy’s retirement was a sudden and unexpected event, a strategic move intended to allow Trump to nominate a friendly successor who would vote favorably on any issues involving Justin Kennedy that might come before the court as a result of the ongoing Mueller investigation into Russian election interference (whereas Kennedy would have to recuse himself from such issues if he remained on the bench):

Snopes then goes on to cite a squib from journalist John Califra, whose words, published earlier this summer, deserve wider distribution. (To improve readability, I've added paragraph breaks and corrected a few grammatical problems.)

Justice Kennedy was not planning to resign next term. We know this because he had already appointed his clerks for that term.

He suddenly resigned because his son worked for Deutsche Bank, indicted in the EU for being a conduit for money laundering for Russian oligarchs. He resigned because his son's client had been Donald Trump, for whom he had arranged up to $1 billion in Deutsche Bank "loans." These funds likely were monies originating from Russian oligarchs connected to Putin -- being laundered through the bank, with the knowledge of Kennedy's son.

In other words, Kennedy's son could be ensnared in the Mueller investigation -- perhaps vulnerable to indictment himself.

In this eventuality, you can be certain that there will be appeals to the Supreme Court to dissipate the threat posed by the investigation. As the father of a potential target of the investigation, Kennedy would be forced to recuse himself, leaving his son's fate to a split court.

He knows that whomever Trump brings to the court will come with the intention of working to mitigate the effects of the certain revelations to come. This would imply that the administration knows that something is going to break in the investigation - and soon. It also puts all of Kennedy's judicial decision relating to Trump under a dark cloud of conflict of interest.

Scoff if you will, but one key idea here makes perfect sense to me: Kennedy would have had to recuse himself in any case involving his son. This, in turn, means that Trump has reason to suspect that a Deutsche Bank-related case might make its way to the Court.

As many of you will recall, Trump has referred to Anthony Kennedy's son Justin as a "special guy."

Let's get back to Snopes:

And, of course, many news outlets have reported on the potentially suspect coincidence that right about the time Trump was sworn in as U.S. president, Deutsche Bank was fined an aggregate $630 million for their involvement in a $10 billion Russian money-laundering scheme — and Deutsche Bank’s records were later reportedly subpoenaed by special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections:

The article goes on to cite some very shady, borscht-flavored loans that Deutsche Bank directed toward the oft-bankrupted Trump. At this point, however, Snopes sounds the caution alarm:

Little hard evidence suggests that the Kennedy rumors are more than political conspiracy-driven speculation, however. Justin Kennedy left Deutsche Bank before the money laundering activity referenced above took place, and some sources have asserted that Justin Kennedy had little or no involvement with Trump’s Deutsche Bank dealings...

Maybe "some sources" are right about that. And maybe "some sources" are engaging in CYA.

So why did Anthony Kennedy resign? Some have speculated that he left in order to protect Justin Kennedy from prosecution. In order for that scenario to work, we have presume that Justin Kennedy did something illegal but is not in a position to blab about Trumpian illegality.

Maybe. But that scenario doesn't seem very likely.

Snopes points to this 2017 Politico article, which mentions another Kennedy son.

While the White House is focused this week on shepherding Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, through the Senate confirmation process, the president and his team are obsessed with the next possible vacancy.

The likeliest candidate is Kennedy, who has sat at the decisive fulcrum of the most important Supreme Court cases for more than a decade. Replacing him with a reliable conservative would tip the court to the right, even if no other seat comes open under Trump — whose team has taken to exploring every imaginable line of communication to keep tabs on the justice and to make him comfortable as he ponders a potential retirement.

One back channel is the fact that Kennedy’s son, Justin, knows Donald Trump Jr. through New York real estate circles. Another is through Kennedy’s other son, Gregory, and Trump’s Silicon Valley adviser Peter Thiel. They went to Stanford Law School together and served as president of the Federalist Society in back-to-back years, according to school records. More recently, Kennedy’s firm, Disruptive Technology Advisers, has worked with Thiel’s company Palantir Technologies.

The White House has also closely monitored retirement chatter by tapping into the network of former Kennedy clerks, a group that includes Gorsuch himself. Some in the legal world viewed Gorsuch’s selection — he would be the first Supreme Court clerk to serve alongside a former boss — as an olive branch to Kennedy that, should he retire next, his seat would be in reliable presidential hands.

Those close to Trump’s judicial-selection process stress that they’re not pressuring Kennedy to hang up his robe, only seeking to put him at ease.

Those words sure as hell read differently now.

Kavanaugh was a Kennedy clerk. It seems quite clear that the Trump White House was talking to Kavanaugh long before Kennedy made his big announcement.

The euphoniously-named Disruptive Technology Advisers is described as a merchant bank that works with tech companies, with offices in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Dubai and Singapore. Nothing in the preceding sentence indicates that Greg Kennedy has done anything legally dubious. If you are wise in the ways of merchant banking, you may be in a position to tell me whether Greg has done anything that might give him some exposure.

There is -- inevitably -- a Cambridge Analytica connection, in the sense that Palantir and CA are intimately related.

Whistleblower claims Palantir worked with Cambridge Analytica on the Facebook data breach

Palantir, a secretive company co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, worked with Cambridge Analytica, the political analysis firm that harvested data from Facebook users, whistleblower Christopher Wylie told U.K. lawmakers Tuesday.

We still don't have a proper theory of Justice Kennedy's resignation, and we need to acquire many more facts before formulating such a theory. What we have right now are serious reasons for suspicion. Both Justin and Greg Kennedy deserve scrutiny.

What makes this whole business particularly odd are the reports that Donald Trump, in private, does not hold much affection for Kavanaugh -- a "Bush guy" in Trump's estimation. Right-wing conspiracy-mongers Roger Stone and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard both consider Brett Kavanaugh a tool of their imaginary Great Clinton Conspiracy.