September 27, 2018 02:08 PM UTC

Senate Republicans Make Ridiculous Late Effort to Muddy the Waters for Kavanaugh Confirmation

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• by: Colorado Pols

The news today will be dominated by two things: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s planned meeting with President Trump at the White House, which may end with Rosenstein out of a job (postponed), and the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The Kavanaugh hearings got underway at 8:00 this morning, with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testifying about her accusations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh when both were in high school. Kavanaugh will give his testimony on these accusations once Ford’s hearing has concluded. As the Washington Post reports today, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee unveiled some ridiculous surprises on the eve of the hearings:

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee disclosed late Wednesday that they had questioned two men who say they, not Kavanaugh, had the encounter with Christine Blasey Ford that led to her sexual assault allegations, but offered no evidence to back up either claim…[Pols emphasis]

…The disclosure of potentially exculpatory material was included in a larger timeline of the committee staff’s investigative work released by Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).

Neither man claiming responsibility is identified by name, and there is no indication that either intends to come forward publicly.

The committee declined to comment further than what was outlined in the news release when asked why Grassley’s staff interviewed the two men who separately say they might have had the alleged encounter with Ford, how they found the men and whether the committee found them credible.

Whaaaaaa???

If you believe Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, at least two different men have come forward to declare that they — and not Brett Kavanaugh — were responsible for sexually assaulting Ford. On the same date. At the same time.

Right.

TIME magazine has more details on these ridiculous claims:

According to the timeline, committee staff interviewed the first man who said he believes he attacked Ford on Sept. 24. They spoke to him again on Sept. 25 and said in the timeline that he “described his recollection of their interaction in some detail.”

The man on Sept. 26 sent a “more in-depth written statement” to the committee. That same day, the committee’s investigative staff spoke on the phone with another man who said he had attacked Ford in 1982.

This is patently and transparently absurd. The implication is that Kavanaugh could not have committed the assault on Ford because two anonymous men separately claim that they were in fact responsible for the attack in question.

Kavanaugh supporters will jump in here and say that these anonymous accounts should be treated with the same seriousness as accusations against Kavanaugh have been portrayed, but that’s a stupid argument that ignores basic common sense. It would be hard enough to believe that one man would suddenly admit to a sexual assault for which he had not been implicated, but two separate men? Did both men commit the same assault at the same time? They can’t both be telling the truth. 

As far as we know, Ford has never wavered in her account of the allegations that two men — Kavanaugh and a friend (identified as Mark Judge) — were present at the time of the alleged assault. That doesn’t mean that Ford’s recollection must be accurate, but it is incredibly insulting to Ford to even speculate that she might be misremembering that it was in fact two other people who assaulted her at the same time.

The obvious point of including these other two anonymous men is for Senate Republicans to be able to say, Oh, this is all too complicated and mysterious, so we’re voting for Kavanaugh’s confirmation. All this really shows is that Senate Republicans aren’t in the least bit serious about listening to allegations of sexual assault if it means that they might have to consider voting against a Supreme Court nominee put forward by a Republican President.