If you search Google for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, as many might be doing today, Google search is identifying him in a number of places as "Former White House Staff Secretary," a role he held before becoming a federal judge in 2006.
Kavanaugh, who faces new hearings Thursday in his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, was named to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 2006. Before that, according to his appeals court biography, he served for five years in the White House under President George W. Bush. For part of that time, from 2003 to 2006, he was assistant to the president and staff secretary to the president, his bio said.
Judge Merrick Garland, the current chief judge of the same DC Circuit where Kavanaugh currently serves, is identified in Google Search as “Judge.”
The identification as former White House secretary has also been spotted in the past week in Google Trends and in searches done on both desktop and mobile computers. This ID for Kavanaugh was spotted in searches for more than a week. An AJC journalist made note of it on Sept. 18.
But there are indications Google understands his current job and the one he has been nominated for. A Google search for "Supreme Court nominees" Thursday morning included this list, titled "Who are the justices."
Brett Kavanaugh tops the list, which includes a mix of Supreme Court Justices and those who were nominated but not confirmed. Included in the latter category is Robert Bork, nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 but rejected by the Senate. The photo for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the search result is decades old. Ginsburg, 85, was appointed to the court in 1993.
Late on Thursday, Google Trends results for Kavanaugh's wife, Ashley, identified her as "Political figure," although Google Search identified her as Brett Kavanaugh's wife.
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