Ronan Farrow and Jane Meyer ofThe New Yorkerhave written many stories about domestic abuse and sexual misconduct reaching top-levels of industry and politics. Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and former CBS News CEO Les Moonves are some of the elite bad men that have been toppled. They have a new story about Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, detailing an alleged incident of sexual misconduct that occurred when he was a student at Yale. The accuser’s name is Deborah Ramirez [emphasis mine]:
The woman at the center of the story, Deborah Ramirez, who is fifty-three, attended Yale with Kavanaugh, where she studied sociology and psychology. Later, she spent years working for an organization that supports victims of domestic violence. The New Yorker contacted Ramirez after learning of her possible involvement in an incident involving Kavanaugh. The allegation was conveyed to Democratic senators by a civil-rights lawyer. For Ramirez, the sudden attention has been unwelcome, and prompted difficult choices. She was at first hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident. In her initial conversations with The New Yorker, she was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty. After six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away. Ramirez is now calling for the F.B.I. to investigate Kavanaugh’s role in the incident. “I would think an F.B.I. investigation would be warranted,” she said.
In a statement, Kavanaugh wrote, “This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name—and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building—against these last-minute allegations.”
[…]
Ramirez said that, when both she and Kavanaugh were freshmen at Yale, she was invited by a friend on the women’s soccer team to a dorm-room party. She recalled that the party took place in a suite at Lawrance Hall, in the part of Yale known as Old Campus, and that a small group of students decided to play a drinking game together. “We were sitting in a circle,” she said. “People would pick who drank.” Ramirez was chosen repeatedly, she said, and quickly became inebriated. At one point, she said, a male student pointed a gag plastic penis in her direction. Later, she said, she was on the floor, foggy and slurring her words, as that male student and another stood nearby. (Ramirez identified the two male onlookers, but, at her request, The New Yorker is not naming them.)
A third male student then exposed himself to her. “I remember a penis being in front of my face,” she said. “I knew that’s not what I wanted, even in that state of mind.” She recalled remarking, “That’s not a real penis,” and the other students laughing at her confusion and taunting her, one encouraging her to “kiss it.” She said that she pushed the person away, touching it in the process. Ramirez, who was raised a devout Catholic, in Connecticut, said that she was shaken. “I wasn’t going to touch a penis until I was married,” she said. “I was embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated.” She remembers Kavanaugh standing to her right and laughing, pulling up his pants. “Brett was laughing,” she said. “I can still see his face, and his hips coming forward, like when you pull up your pants.” She recalled another male student shouting about the incident. “Somebody yelled down the hall, ‘Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis in Debbie’s face,’ ” she said. “It was his full name. I don’t think it was just ‘Brett.’ And I remember hearing and being mortified that this was out there.”
Again, there are huge holes in this story. First, the allegation occurred 30-plus years ago. Second, take a look this phrase: “After six days of carefully assessing her memories…” that’s certainly interesting. Add this to the fact that multiple people have refuted the accusation, and she only remembered this particular incident after Brett Kavanaugh was nominated for the Supreme Court—this is another suspect story dropped at the last-minute. Like the previous allegation lobbed against the judge by Christine Blasey Ford, in which she alleges a drunken 17-year-old Kavanaugh tried to sexually assault her at a party in high school, there is zero evidence. Both allegations are unprovable. Both are too old to truly be vetted. Both are not federal crimes, so the FBI can’t really step in here no matter how loud the Democratic cries become.
Again, lets recap how we got here. Democrats were freaking out that Justice Anthony Kennedy was retiring. Trump picks another nominee; Democrats are still fuming over the GP blocking Merrick Garland. Brett Kavanaugh is nominated, his hearings, while intense at times, go through, his confirmation is almost a guarantee, and then we have these zero hour sexual misconduct. It’s too good to be true. Why weren’t these allegations unearthed during the hearings or prior to them? Ramirez’s story is new, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) knew about Ford for weeks. Her office received her letter detailing the allegation back in July. She sat on it, didn’t tell her Senate colleagues, and only turned it over to the DOJ days before what would have been the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote on Kavanaugh. Ford also has witnesses that don’t recollect the incident, refuting her account. She can’t remember how this party came about, how she got there, or who owned the house. Key details are missing. In the meantime, prior to this story dropping like an A-bomb, she retained the Debra Katz, an unabashed anti-Trump lawyer (and Democratic operative) and took a polygraph administered by an anonymous former FBI agent, yet she wanted to remain anonymous. No, these aren’t the actions of someone wanting to be anonymous; they’re ones taken for someone to eventually go public.
The New Yorker wasn’t the only one to look into these claims. The New York Times did their due diligence and in a moment of good journalism for the paper, they couldn’t do a deep-dive on the allegations lobbed by Ramirez. Why? They couldn’t confirm anything [emphasis mine]:
Judge Kavanaugh’s prospects were further clouded on Sunday when The New Yorker reported on a new allegation of sexual impropriety: A woman who went to Yale with Judge Kavanaugh said that, during a drunken dormitory party their freshman year, he exposed himself to her, thrust his penis into her face and caused her to touch it without her consent.
In a statement, Judge Kavanaugh denied the allegation from the woman, Deborah Ramirez, and called it “a smear, plain and simple.” The New Yorker did not confirm with other eyewitnesses that Judge Kavanaugh was at the party.
The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.
Oh, wait—so Ramirez isn’t sure it was Kavanaugh? Ramirez also says that her decision to come forward isn’t politically motivated…only that it is politically motivated [emphasis mine]:
Ramirez is a registered Democrat, but said that her decision to speak out was not politically motivated and, regarding her views, that she “works toward human rights, social justice, and social change.” Ramirez said that she felt “disappointed and betrayed” by the statements from classmates questioning her allegation, “because I clearly remember people in the room whose names are on this letter.”
Ford is also a Democrat. Both women have unverifiable allegations. Maybe that’s why Feinstein sat on them. There’s no way to be fair with these stories to both parties. Also, Feinstein herself stepped on a rake by suggesting that Ford’s allegation might not be true.
As I’ve said before, this has all the makings of a political hit job of the vilest kind. Democrats are using unprovable allegations to delay the process. You saw that when Ford was dragging her feet on whether to testify after the GOP offered both a public and private hearing, with the option of staffers heading to her home to record her testimony.
The Left knows this will build pressure on Republicans. They know it will fan the anti-Trump flames of their base before the 2018 midterms. They want to use it to destroy an eminently qualified judge, who they hate—and they hated how everyone was saying he was a decent, honorable, loving family man. Republicans cannot be those things in the eyes of Democrats. In today’s world, you no longer need bullets to assassinate leaders. His character is trashed, his nomination is derailed, and Democrats increase their political position on the Hill after November. You gotta give the Left credit—and I don’t mean that in a good way. This ploy is nasty. And it shows what lengths they will go to avoid losing power, along with their affinity for abortion. Remember they really fear Kavanaugh will be the key vote to overturn Roe, among other things. On top of this, they want an FBI investigation. Remember, it’s a game of running out the clock, but using the FBI to help them execute their hit on Kavanaugh is deplorable. It’s nonsense—and yet, these are the folks who clamor about how institutional integrity s being degraded under Trump. Maybe it is—they’re doing it.
With Democrats calling to postpone the Kavanaugh nomination over these new allegations, is Ms. Ford kicked to the curb? I thought they wanted to hear her story. Apparently not, it’s all about stopping Kavanaugh. They don’t care if it’s true. And as for due process, some Democrats on the committee think that the judge’s legal philosophy pretty much means he’s guilty of sexual misconduct. Also, conservative judges are not afforded the right to due process. It’s quite the position.
CNN’s Jake Tapper: “Doesn’t Kavanaugh have the same presumption of innocence as anyone else in America?”
— CNN (@CNN) September 23, 2018
Sen. Mazie Hirono: “I put his denial in the context of everything that I know about him in terms of how he approaches his cases” #CNNSOTU https://t.co/E2UoZMzNhN pic.twitter.com/3mDb8ysskj
Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) already postponed the committee vote on the nomination. But we all see the playbook here. This looks awfully like a politically motivated hit job, and it probably is. The Democrats know what’s at stake. So do Republicans, but only one side is acting like it. Until Trump leaves office, the GOP has to be on a war footing. This is wartime. It’s time to be nasty, get nasty, and throw haymakers. Screw civility because you shall receive none from the Left. Screw mercy, again, because you shall receive none. The Democratic Party is the enemy. Act like it! They’re running a blitz. It’s time the GOP to burn them down field.
Judicial Crisis Network has a better encapsulation of the mess that’ unfolding right now: it’s a smear campaign on steroids:
Senate Republicans must not allow unsubstantiated and discredited allegations from over three decades ago to destroy the life and reputation of a good man. Countless people from every phase of Brett Kavanaugh's life have testified that he is a good man of the highest character and integrity. Chuck Schumer vowed to oppose Kavanaugh with everything he's got, and apparently that took the form of character assassination. This has all of the ingredients of a smear campaign on steroids. Senate Republicans should stand up to these unsubstantiated and discredited allegations and move forward with a vote to confirm Kavanaugh."
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