Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and White House staffer Kellyanne Conway committed the same factual inaccuracy on Thursday and Sunday, respectively, but CNN’s Jake Tapper didn’t let it go unchallenged.
Both Kavanaugh and Conway asserted that certain people who Christine Blasey Ford remembers as being present the night Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted her have denied the basis of Blasey Ford’s allegation.
“All four witnesses who are alleged to be at the event said it didn’t happen,” Kavanaugh told the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, referring to the small gathering Blasey Ford described at which the alleged assault took place.
“The people that she said were at the party say that they weren’t, that this didn’t happen,” Conway claimed to Tapper on Sunday.
Both assertions are untrue: Aside from Kavanaugh’s denial of the assault, others who Blasey Ford identified as being at the party have simply said they don’t recall such an event, which would have occurred decades ago in 1982. One person Blasey Ford remembers as being downstairs at the gathering while the alleged assault was happening upstairs, Leland Ingham Keyser, has repeatedly said she believes Blasey Ford, even if she doesn’t remember that night herself.
When Tapper called Conway on her factual inaccuracy Sunday, Conway dismissed the distinction, even if it could mean that Kavanaugh — potentially — knowingly lied to Congress.
“Let’s not parse words here,” Conway said.
Tapper calls Conway (and Kavanaugh) out for blurring the distinction between individuals who claim "that this didn't happen" and those who are not "able to corroborate it." pic.twitter.com/ncibogdpBh
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) September 30, 2018
