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
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.
So what just happened? Did Sen. Flake force a deal on starting an FBI investigation? 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.
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
I was just reading an email from a longtime reader. He makes a simple point. As the debate is currently structured, if the FBI cannot turn up significant evidence to back up one of the abuse or assault claims against Kavanaugh, he gets confirmed. The copious evidence of deception and outright lies does not appear to be part of the equation right now. Read More
Mitch McConnell says he wants a Kavanaugh vote “this week.” Since the Flake agreement was for an FBI investigation lasting no more than one week (from last Friday) and the “this week” ends this Friday, this seems to require a vote almost literally as soon as the report is released. Tierney Sneed walks us through the procedural nuts and bolts (Prime access) of what’s involved here and how it’s likely to work. (Hint: McConnell is hoping the investigation is done tomorrow.)
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I just read the new Times piece about this letter Brett Kavanaugh wrote to his pals in advance of a big beach weekend during high school. That is only one part of the piece. The piece illustrates what I think we already know: that Kavanaugh was part of that gang of jocks who dominated your high school, ran the circuit of underground but cool kid parties, drank to insane levels of excess. We know these guys. There’s a different version of the story if it’s a hard-charging elite private school like Georgetown Prep or one of America’s countless public high schools. But I think we all know these guys. It’s pre-Fraternity Life in high school, filled with ridiculous over-consumption of alcohol and jocular innuendo and shout-outs to predatory sexuality. There’s even a clip from the gangs underground high school paper calling out the girls from Holton Arms – which Kavanaugh said his social set didn’t overlap with – as worthless and promiscuous “Holton Hosebag[s]”. Nothing is held back. Read More