With the flurry of Thursday and Friday now behind us, I want to put together what I think are the most pertinent pieces of evidence, leads and dangling threads that would be the top priority of any real investigation into the Ford/Kavanaugh accusations. These could be journalistic investigations as much as law enforcement ones, and it seems the former will be required because the latter doesn’t seem to be happening in any real sense. Read More
From TPM Reader TH …
It feels like eons ago, but last night I flashed on that video of the Parkland father trying to have a word with Brett Kavanaugh. The video of the women confronting Flake must have brought it to mind. What struck us at the time was how dismissive Kavanaugh was, even disdainful. When I first saw it, I didn’t want to make too much of it. In retrospect, it reveals who he really is; when he feels someone is beneath him, he treats them with contempt. He did it with the father, with girls when was younger, with U.S. senators, and he’s doing it with the American people.
So what just happened? Did Sen. Flake force a deal on starting an FBI investigation? Read More
There’s something very odd going on in this Senate hearing room. It appears that Senator Flake, who had come out in Kavanaugh’s favor this morning, has been having “discussions” with Sen. Chris Coons and seemingly having some second thoughts about his choice. It’s really not clear what he’s doing. But they were supposed to vote at 1:30 PM. They’ve now gone past that time. There are a few possibilities. One is that he’s changed his position. That seems hard to believe. But possibly he has moved toward insisting on some kind of investigation. We don’t know. But there’s clearly some hitch.
Yesterday was a compendium of so many things in our public life. There are too many things that could be said about it. Let me start now with one observation on the entirety of the day and what I think was the most critical development in terms of specific new evidence that really demands some investigation. Read More
Lindsey Graham, who is now showing his worst and true side, said this about the Kavanaugh decision: “Ms. Ford has a problem and destroying Judge Kavanaugh’s life won’t fix her problem.”
Kavanaugh’s testimony and questioning were almost entirely heat and little light. This was the pivotal moment in my mind for what it revealed.
Kavanaugh asks Sen Klobuchar multiple times if she's had alcoholic blackouts. pic.twitter.com/3huBRb2JEo
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) September 27, 2018
This meanwhile was Kavanaugh clearly and transparently lying to the committee.
This is critical exchange. Kavanaugh is clearly lying about Renate. It is obvious to anyone who has ever been in high school or college that this was sexual shaming, calling her easy. He's lying. Lying when everyone knows it. pic.twitter.com/l6N3h7jZO0
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) September 27, 2018
Quick thoughts on Brett Kavanaugh’s opening statement. To me he seemed more unhinged than forceful. It had been telegraphed that he wanted to show more emotion than he had in earlier testimony. He certainly managed that. He testimony seemed openly partisan, showing his roots as more of a political operative than a jurist. His testimony was almost the definition of someone who lacks a judicial temperament. For all this though I also know I was not the intended audience. For that audience of Republican senators and Republican voters I do think he went some way to at least stabilizing the catastrophic damage he suffered this morning.
I think he quickly lost ground in his only questioning from Democrats. Yelling works better in a statement of defense than it does in a question and answer with a senator. Feinstein asked a straightforward question. He did not answer it.
Another point. There were various moments, bread crumbs spread through the statement that suggested Kavanaugh does not think he’ll ever make it to the Supreme Court. And I think this assumption shaped his testimony. He looked like someone cuing up another career.
I have, so far, had an odd exposure to today’s testimony. I had to be out of the office and offline for most of the late morning, notwithstanding the gravity and newsworthiness of the day. I saw the first fifteen or twenty minutes of Blasey Ford’s testimony. Then I returned for the last round of questioning of Blasey Ford from Rachel Mitchell, the sex crimes prosecutor from Arizona.
Everything I’ve heard about what came between confirms me in my reaction to those two portions of the hearing. Read More