WATCH! Sen. Kennedy EXPOSES a Professor’s Bias at Hearing

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) did what he does best: intellectually torching buffoonish witnesses that appear before him. Yesterday, Kennedy served up a heavy heaping of accountability to law professor Kate Shaw, exposing the bias that Shaw has become known for in legal commentary circles.

If you’re a fan of watching pompous experts get hoisted by their own petards, then this one’s for you!

Who Is Kate Shaw?

Make no mistake, Prof. Shaw is no slouch. She is a well-educated attorney and scholar with works published in top-tier law reviews and journals. She teaches at the prestigious Carey Law School at the University of Pennsylvania, so her academic credentials are impeccable.

We should also point out that Shaw is married to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and has contributed to The New York Times, The Atlantic, ABC News, Slate, and more on various stories at the intersection of law and politics. She also co-hosts a popular podcast analyzing the Supreme Court, which features some off-color partisan hot takes.

That’s where Professor Shaw slips up: while she is more than qualified to opine on legal theory, she lets her personal political beliefs cloud her opinions.

Kennedy’s Expert Political Cross-Examination

Kennedy, known for his plain-spoken zingers and surgical questioning during committee hearings, used this hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which addressed the abuse of nationwide injunctions by federal district courts, as a vehicle to expose Shaw’s bias.

For the uninitiated, nationwide injunctions occur when a federal district court grants an application from an aggrieved party that effectively stays a governmental action pending a hearing. This maneuver has become a favored legal tactic—especially during the Trump administration—as the federal government took a more aggressive posture on immigration enforcement and expedited deportations.

When Kennedy asked Shaw, a panelist invited by Senate Democrats, whether she thought these injunctions were being abused, Shaw hedged by saying that those applications made during the Trump administration were fair and brought in good faith.

Meanwhile, other panelists admitted that both Republicans and Democrats have exploited nationwide injunctions.

Kennedy wasn’t buying it, arguing that Shaw’s opinions changed with the political winds.

And that’s where things got interesting.

Shaw’s Quote Comes Back to Bite

Senator Kennedy shifted gears and cited a statement Shaw made on her podcast last year. While referencing a Supreme Court holding, Kennedy boldly claimed that Shaw had referred to the majority of the Court as “evil.”

At first, Shaw responded that she didn’t remember saying it—perhaps it was a transcription error, she suggested.

Wrong move. Kennedy quoted her, chapter and verse:

“Justice Kagan, I mean, will she be able to control the opinion’s future distortion by her evil colleagues? Probably not.”

After a little bit of digging, we verified the quote. It came from an April 22, 2024 episode of Strict Scrutiny, where Shaw critiques a majority opinion written by Justice Elena Kagan in the matter of Muldrow v. City of St. Louis.

It’s right there on video as clear as day. Or, as Sen. Kennedy would say, “Big as Dallas!”

Kennedy Delivers the Knockout to Shaw

With the evidence laid bare, and Shaw reduced to stammering, feigned lack of memory, and bold-faced denials, Kennedy used the moment to question Shaw’s credibility, accusing her of being more political pundit than legal scholar. He scolded her for teaching students while harboring what he called dangerous political bias.

“You’re an officer of the court and you say there are evil members of the U.S. Supreme Court?” Kennedy quipped.

“Gag me with a spoon.”

Is Shaw a Partisan Hack?

Shaw’s partisan history makes her unable to serve as a truly impartial legal voice. Her appearance before the Senate suggests that Shaw’s reluctance to admit bias, despite mounting evidence, reveals a blind spot in her professional reasoning that renders her opinions unreliable.

The post-hearing analysis is clear: Shaw got caught in her own net.

Nationwide injunctions are a legitimate legal topic worthy of honest debate. But when biased experts like Shaw appear before Congress, the proceedings take a serious legal discussion and turn it into rank partisan theater.

And that’s exactly the kind of buffoonery this series loves to spotlight—with the hope that the more people see—and call out—this kind of partisan buffoonery, the less we’ll see of it in the future.

Whether you think Shaw just had a bad day or genuinely revealed her bias, there’s no denying this exchange had its share of political fireworks. This was a masterclass in how to exact political comeuppance from a partisan buffoon.

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