Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is taking a leave of absence due to what he describes as the “appalling and inexcusable” mistake of tweeting a baseless theory that one of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s Georgetown Prep classmates actually perpetrated the alleged sexual assault against professor Christine Blasey Ford in a case of mistaken identity.
According to a Sunday Politico report, the board of the policy center rejected his permanent resignation. Board members will reportedly meet in a month to revisit his absence.
Whelan released an apology on Sunday, focusing mostly on the damage he did to Kavanaugh’s classmate, as well as to Kavanaugh himself.
“I apologize deeply and sincerely to all those whom I have harmed by my appalling and inexcusable tweet thread last week,” he wrote in the National Review. “Above all, the person whose name I wrongly made public, but lots of others as well, including Judge Kavanaugh, my Ethics and Public Policy Center colleagues, those institutions and individuals who have supported my work or my colleagues’ work, the editors of National Review (who have made it possible for me to reach a wide audience here at Bench Memos since 2005), and many others who had placed their trust in me.’
He got around to Blasey Ford a paragraph down. “I also apologize to victims of sexual assault and to Dr. Ford for these and other tweets that did not address with respectful consideration the difficult question of how to assess allegations of sexual assault,” he said.
But he added a caveat: “I do not believe that all such allegations must be accepted as true, and I believe further that the usual inquiries into motivation, cognition, memory and other matters that apply to other charges properly apply to these as well.”
He insisted that his tweets came from a good place, his earnest and sincere belief that Kavanagh is a man of “honesty” and “integrity.”
Whelan is chased from a job for doing something Trump does about 3-4 times a day, every day, all year long.
The guy who runs the fry machine at McDonald’s would get fired for not washing his hands after using the bathroom, and rightly so. But this prick gets off with a leave of absence? What, E&PPC couldn’t find his replacement masturbating out by the dumpster in the alley behind the local Beef & Brau?
There seem to be ample grounds for a libel/defamation lawsuit here, should the harmed party want to go that route.
Of course he needs to take a leave of absence. He’s going to be busy scouring the pages of old yearbooks from Yale to see if he can find some pictures of other doughy frat boys who look like Kavanaugh. “And notice: This young man’s dorm room looks just like Kavanaugh’s!”
“So are we all, all men of honesty and integrity. Exitus acta probat.”