Tipsheet

On Kavanaugh, Did Democrats Execute A Brilliant Kill Move Or Did Another Bomb Go Off In Their Faces?

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  September 19, 2018 1:05 PM

UPDATE: Kavanaugh is said to be prepared for Monday’s grilling.

UPDATE II: FBI says it's out of our hands.

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Last week, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) dropped a bombshell on the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination: a woman alleged he almost sexually assaulted her at a party nearly 40 years ago. It’s a totally unprovable allegation. The parties involved have differing accounts. Mark Judge, another man mentioned in the account, denies this alleged attack ever occurring. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Feinstein knew about this back in the summer, but held onto it for weeks, keeping all of her Senate colleagues in the dark. That alone speaks to how her office viewed this allegation and its credibility. Kavanaugh has categorically denied the allegations.

After days remaining in anonymity, the woman came forward over the weekend. Her name is Christine Blasey Ford, a research psychologist and Palo Alto University professor, who also teaches at Stanford. She also took a polygraph administered by an unknown former FBI agent and retained the legal services of Debra Katz, who is really a Democratic operative. Did she really want to be anonymous? I don’t think so—this is the calculated move of someone who was getting ready to go public. It’s a politically motivated character assassination because Democrats don’t have the votes to block Kavanaugh outright. 

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So, use this allegation, which was dredged up during Ford’s 2012 couple’s therapy session—and even the notes offer a different account and don’t name Kavanaugh by name—create chaos and delay. Delaying this until after the midterms increases Democrats’ chances to derail the nomination, especially if this unverifiable accusation further fanes the anti-Trump flames spreading throughout the party’s liberal base. It could lead to a 50-50 split in the Senate, or a 52-48 Democratic majority in the worst-case scenario. Either way, if that happens, the nomination is toast. 

Now, via Guy’s post, he notes how the accuser's story is starting to crumble. Remember when the original story was that Ford never told anyone until 2012? Yeah—that’s a lie. Also, witnesses named by Ford deny being at the party or even knowing about it. This is collapsing fast:

As others have noted, however, that was a matter between two federal employees -- and that "investigation" involved a collection of relevant parties' statements, which nobody had at that time. In this case, we already have the statements of the accuser, the accused, a supposed eyewitness, and now another witness Ford has placed at the scene

Lying in a letter to the committee is a crime, incidentally.  Some liberals, including CNN employees, are downplaying this update, chiding conservatives for wrongly "seizing" on it.  This is ludicrous.  We have very, very few actual facts to try to verify, based on Ford's allegation (which, yes, contains some gaps and inconsistencies).  One of those possible facts is the list of attendees (the number of whom has shifted) at the house that night, as she remembers it.  This is one of those people stepping forward and disavowing any knowledge of her allegation and vouching for Kavanaugh's character. If that's irrelevant, then what are we allowed to count as relevant?  As a side note, someone purporting to be a high school friend of Ford's published, then deleted, a tweet and Facebook post earlier today, in which she claims that she was aware of the attempted assault shortly after it is said to have occurred. The problem with that fleeting assertion, or any similar unverifiable assertions that may arise in the coming days, is that Ford herself is on the record as saying that she didn't tell anyone about it for 30 years

If we are to believe Ford's memory -- which is the whole basis of this entire case -- anyone now belatedly attesting to contemporaneous knowledge of the alleged incident must be viewed with significant skepticism.  They're contradicting her.  Or she's misremembering a crucial detail, which presents a separate problem. (UPDATE: The aforementioned woman now says she has no firsthand knowledge of the situation and is refusing to comment further).

Still, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has offered a hearing on Monday. Kavanaugh has agreed to answer questions as well. The Republicans gave the Left what they wanted: a forum for the accuser to face the accused and lay out the allegation…that’s again nearly 40 years old. The problem: Ms. Ford and her lawyer are AWOL. They haven’t agreed to show up and they might not show. If that’s the case, then the committee should move forward with Kavanaugh’s nomination, and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who called for a delay in the initial vote, which was set for this Thursday, said he would back his party’s push to vote on the nominee. 

So, it’s game over, right? No. Ford and Katz poked their heads out of the bunker to demand the FBI launch an investigation:

The woman who has accused President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee of sexual assault all but ruled out appearing at an extraordinary Senate hearing scheduled for next week to hear her allegations, insisting on Tuesday that the F.B.I. investigate first.

Speaking through lawyers, Christine Blasey Ford said she would cooperate with the Senate Judiciary Committee and left open the possibility of testifying later about her allegations against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh. But echoing Senate Democrats, she said an investigation should be “the first step” before she is put “on national television to relive this traumatic and harrowing incident.”

Republicans signaled Tuesday night that they would not negotiate an alternative date and would go ahead with the hearing without her or declare it unnecessary if she refuses to appear, then possibly move to a vote. They have repeatedly stressed that Monday would be Dr. Blasey’s opportunity to testify, either privately or publicly, and that they planned to move forward with the confirmation process afterward.


That’s not going to happen. Again, we see the game plan. It’s delay and delay and delay some more. So, was this a brilliantly executed kill move by Democrats, specifically Feinstein? Uh, for the first few hours—maybe that was the case. It plunged the whole nomination into chaos. Now, Feinstein is being lit up on all sides for sitting on the letter. She even said yesterday that the allegation might not be true. She backpedaled, but it just speaks to how badly this is turning out for Democrats. Republicans are remaining firm. They’re offering Ford opportunities to come forward and testify to the allegation’s veracity—and she’s not cooperating. One thin and unprovable allegation cannot be allowed to derail a judicial nomination. That’s the course of action—and it’s the right one. If Kavanaugh falls to the Left’s odious attacks, then any allegation without evidence from any point in time of a future nominee’s past is fair game. That’s the new precedent Democrats seek to be establishing before our eyes. We should be horrified. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) also says the FBI should investigate this allegation, not Congress. As Ed noted, the only problem is the FBI already said they wouldn’t do this; they don’t investigate local crimes as part of the background check process in these cases. There’s no federal crime to be investigated. Ed sharpens his knives on the idiocy of this talking point, while also exposing how the Democrats might have totally screwed themselves in the process [emphasis mine]:

Not only does it not involve a federal crime, it doesn’t have enough specificity to warrant a local police investigation either. At least from the reporting so far, Ford doesn’t have a specific time or place where this occurred, and the only other named person in the allegation — Mark Judge — denies it ever happened at all. Plus, the statute of limitations would have long ago passed on an aggravated assault, especially when committed by a minor. But even if Ford remembered the specific date, time, and provided the names of potential witnesses, and it had happened within the statute of limitations, it still wouldn’t be the FBI’s jurisdiction. It’s a local crime, and the local police would have to investigate it.

One would think that a woman who served as a state’s top law-enforcement officer would remember that. And for that matter, Harris seems confused about the purpose of the background investigations the FBI performs

Anyone who has gone through an FBI background check would grasp the difference. It entails plenty of interviews, referrals, and records checks and more, all of which end up in a raw file which contains everything dug up. Analysts then pore through the material and assess the credibility of each piece of data and assertion, determine whether the person represents a security risk, and reports those findings to the requesting agency. It’s not a criminal investigation, although it might spark one if the FBI uncovers evidence of violations of federal crimes. But what they don’t do is settle he said/she said questions; they just refer that back to the requestor to handle.

As a former prosecutor, Harris might well be inclined to believe the alleger, but she should also know that doesn’t settle the matter. Accusations require evidence — witnesses, physical evidence, and at a minimum enough specifics to fix the date and place of the alleged crime. That’s even more true when someone waits 35 years to make the accusation, which raises questions as to whether a crime occurred at all. Either Harris needs to get the local PD to get those answers out of Ford, or the Judiciary Committee will have to do it, thanks to Democrats leaking the story to the press and making it all public.

Let’s recap here, Democrats were willing to use this woman, potentially dragging her through hell to stop Kavanaugh. You leak the story, force her out of the shadows, which she intended on doing anyway, only to push nonsensical talking points, disregard the statute of limitations, and hope that enough pressure comes to bear to stop this nominee. Well, they failed. The Left didn’t take into account that almost everyone thinks the timing of this disclosure is suspect, coupled with the fact that this allegation cannot be adequately vetted to discern what is truth or crap. And frankly, that's the point. Maybe there's a reason why Feinstein’s office sat on this letter. It wouldn't have gone anywhere. 

It created a lot of noise, but after the decibels return to normal levels, the chess pieces are the same: the GOP isn’t buckling—at least not on this weak sauce allegation–and they'll have the votes to confirm. This isn't the first trip up; the Left blew it when they demanded more time for document disclosures after they had signaled they would never support Kavanaugh in any way. So, why would Grassley entertain your BS motions during the hearing? The same transparent nonsense is here: the Democrats want to delay with this appallingly shoddy allegation, the GOP sees it, and even the most anti-Trump of Republicans aren’t going to break ranks. It seems another bomb has exploded in the Democrats’ faces. We’ll know on Monday.