There was a moment during Thursday’s hearing when Christine Blasey Ford was asked, “Was it communicated to you by your counsel or someone else, that the committee had asked to interview you and that — that they offered to come out to California to do so?”
At which point, her lawyer Michael Bromwich grabbed the microphone to interrupt: “We’re going to object, Mr. Chairman, to any call for privileged conversations between counsel and Dr. Ford.”
A poker player would call that a “tell.” Among the many things we learned from Thursday’s hearing was that the excuse given for delaying Professor Ford’s testimony was a lie. She wasn’t afraid of flying. She was a frequent flyer, traveling to vacations around the world and, in point of fact, at the time the Senate Judiciary Committee was offering to fly to California to interview her, Professor Ford was not in California. She was already in the D.C. area, having flown there to strategize with her lawyers, who were recommended to her by Sen. Dianne Feinstein. She had also flown to the D.C. area in August, when she took a polygraph test at the Hilton Hotel near Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
This was all a set-up, a carefully planned ambush by Democrats, calculated either to force Judge Kavanaugh to withdraw his name for the Supreme Court nomination, or else to delay the process past the midterm elections, turning the nomination into a campaign issue.
Once you understand this, the coordination between Senate Democrats and Professor Ford’s lawyers appears highly significant. Anyone could look at the calendar and see how long Feinstein, her Democrat colleagues and the media prepared this ambush. On June 27, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement and, within a few days, Professor Ford contacted the Washington Post to share her 1982 tale about Judge Kavanaugh, who was widely reported to be on President Trump’s short list of candidates to replace Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh’s name was announced July 9, and days later, Profesor Ford met with her Democrat congresswoman, Rep. Anna Eshoo, who recommended that Professor Ford detail her accusations in a letter to Feinstein. That letter was hand-delivered to Feinstein on July 30. The next day, Aug. 1, in an interview on the Hugh Hewitt radio program, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said:
“If we could get this all done by October 1st when the Supreme Court starts its new fall session, [that] would be ideal. But I think we can get it done soon after that if we don’t get it done by October 1st.”
Grassley explained in that interview that the hearing would likely be delayed until after Labor Day, because August was already booked up with the Senate committee scheduled to consider a series of votes on President Trump’s lower-court appointees. The clock was ticking, however, and Professor Ford’s lawyers wasted no time getting to work. By Aug. 7, Professor Ford was being polygraphed — and Feinstein didn’t say a word about this accusation to her Republican colleagues on the committee. That’s a crucial fact to keep in mind, now that the vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation has been delayed because Jeff Flake got harassed in an elevator by Soros-funded protesters.
The confirmation hearings for Judge Kavanaugh began Sept. 4. Feinstein had been in possession of Professor Ford’s letter for 36 days, and the accuser had been a client of the lawyers recommended by Feinstein for five weeks. Yet while Judge Kavanaugh sat for more than 30 hours of hearings in the Judiciary Committee, where Feinstein was the ranking Democrat member, she never asked a single question about this accusation and, most importantly, nobody on the Republican side of the aisle had any clue that Christine Blasey Ford existed, and was working with a team of lawyers hand-picked for her by Feinstein.
Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony ended Friday, Sept. 7, and the Judiciary Committee vote was already scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 20, allowing another week for the full Senate to debate the nomination and vote, thus to have the new appointee confirmed by the time the Supreme Court convened on Oct. 1. Feinstein, who had been holding onto Professor Ford’s letter since late July, waited until Thursday, Sept. 13, to go public with it, pretending that this delay was about protecting the accuser’s anonymity. Of course, the Washington Post had been talking to Professor Ford for more than two months by then, and they had a feature story ready to go for the front page of their Sunday edition on Sept. 16.
What happened here was all a result of Feinstein’s bad faith (mala fides) in handling the accusation from Professor Ford. She had an obligation to inform her Republican colleagues of this accusation, and her failure to do so in a timely manner is inexcusable. We have been repeatedly told, by Democrats and their allies in the media, that Professor Ford’s accusation is “credible,” and yet it was not until Sept. 13 — nine days after Judge Kavnaugh had begun testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and a week before the committee was scheduled to vote on his nomination — that Feinstein dropped this bombshell. Judge Kavanaugh has testified that, when the accusation first became public, before Professor Ford discarded her mask of anonymity, he had no idea who could be making such a claim against him. Everyone named as a potential witness to this alleged incident has disclaimed any knowledge of it. Leland Keyser, the accuser’s “lifelong friend” whom she named as a witness, said she “does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford.”
Professor Ford’s description of the party at which the alleged incident occurred, near the Columbia Country Club, has been suggested as indicating the home of Judge Kavanaugh’s friend Chris “Squi” Garrett, whom Professor Ford briefly dated. Yet she didn’t name Garrett as having been present at the party, and no one else named by her — Kavanaugh, his friend Mark Judge or P.J. Smyth — lived near the country club. However “credible” Professor Ford may seem to anyone, the known facts simply don’t match her story. Can the FBI unravel this?
During Friday’s meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse focused on one date — July 1, 1982 — on the calendar that Judge Kavanaugh fortuitously had kept all these years. That entry indicates that Kavanaugh went to “Timmy” Gaudette’s house for a party where Judge, Smyth and Garrett were also in attendance. The problem, however, is that Gaudette lived 10 miles from the country club, and Professor Ford never mentioned him as being present at the party where this alleged incident occurred. Furthermore, as has been often noted, Professor Ford was 15 at the time — too young to drive — and the country club was some eight miles from her family’s home, but she has no memory of who drove her to this party, or who drove her home. If this is a “credible” story, what would an incredible story look like?
The discrepancies between Professor Ford’s account and the available facts, of course, were not known to Feinstein in July when this whole smear machinery against Judge Kavanaugh was set into motion. If Feinstein had informed her Republican colleagues prior to the Sept. 4 beginning of Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony before the committee, it would have been possible for committee staff to investigate this accusation, to obtain whatever evidence and testimony were available, and to have Judge Kavanaugh address the accusation during his four days of testimony. Why didn’t that happen?
Because Democrats didn’t want it to happen.
This was all a dishonest scheme orchestrated by sociopaths.
The identity politics factor — the #MeToo movement — has prevented any Republican from coming right out and calling Christine Blasey Ford a liar, and all the pundits on TV keep saying how “credible” she is, but I’ve had some personal experience dealing with sociopathic liars, and this situation seems uncomfortably familiar to me.
Dianne Feinstein’s bad-faith handling of this accusation succeeded in delaying the Judiciary Committee’s vote, originally scheduled for Sept 20, by eight days. The stunt pulled Friday, with two Soros-funded activists tag-teaming Jeff Flake in an elevator, led him to demand an FBI investigation that will add at least another week’s delay in the process. What this will mean, in practical terms, is that Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) will have another week to smear Judge Kavanaugh’s name while the FBI determines what everybody already knows: There is no evidence to support Professor Ford’s accusation, and much evidence that suggests she’s lying. What would be interesting to discover, however, is how this smear-job was coordinated. Let’s investigate, eh?
Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy:
Just like their other tactics throughout this confirmation process, Senate Democrats’ demands for an FBI investigation have never been about getting the facts or finding the truth.
If they were, they would have alerted law enforcement months ago, as soon as they learned of the claims. Instead, they waited until the last minute to leak them in order to delay the vote.
That is why any FBI investigation of the allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh should include potential coordination between the Democrat operatives and lawyers that assisted in bringing them forth.
What Senate Democrats really want is more time to smear Judge Kavanaugh, regardless of the toll it takes on his wife, his daughters, and our country.
Democrats will not suddenly require evidence to declare Judge Kavanaugh guilty of being the worst kind of criminal. They will not suddenly abandon their assumption that all accusations against Republicans are credible and to be believed.
If the FBI turns up nothing significant, they will say what Joe Biden said in 1991, that the FBI does not reach conclusions. They will say the FBI did not have enough time to conduct a thorough investigation.
What they will not do is admit they were wrong to accuse Judge Kavanaugh of being a gang rapist, or a rapist, or a sexual assaulter, or a drunk, or a perjurer, or a hothead unfit for the bench.
If the delay facilitates new allegations from Michael Avenatti or someone else, it will not matter how ludicrous they are. Democrats will instantly call them credible, demand more delays, more FBI resources, and more hearings. They will attack anyone who disagrees.
Delay, delay, delay. That’s all they want, because their goal is to do anything and everything to smear any nominee — anyone — and block Republicans from appointing another justice to the Supreme Court.
We cannot and should not let that happen.
It was a mistake for Republicans to agree to further delay in the confirmation process, to appease Democrats who have been acting in bad faith since July, when Dianne Feinstein failed to share Professor Ford’s letter with her GOP colleagues. You cannot appease totalitarians, as we should have learned at Munich in 1938, and the way Democrats have run this game is as dishonest as Hitler claiming that the Sudetenland was his last territorial demand in Europe. “Peace for our time,” indeed.
Don’t appease bullies, and never negotiate with sociopaths.
UPDATE: Great minds think alike:
Most notably, if the July 1 party were the event at which Ford claims she was assaulted, what about Timmy, Tom, Bernie, and Squi? They are, respectively, Kavanaugh high school friends Tim Gaudette, Tom Kane, Bernie McCarthy, and Chris Garrett. What might they know about what took place?
If the July 1 party were the event in question, the presence of Garrett would be especially noteworthy. In her testimony, Ford said she was going out with Garrett at that time in the summer of 1982. Today, she remembers him well. When Kavanaugh supporter Ed Whalen came up with a theory of mistaken identity, suggesting without evidence that Garrett, and not Kavanaugh, attacked Ford, Ford quickly said that there was no way she would mistake the two, and that she knew without doubt that Kavanaugh, not Garrett, was her attacker.
But if Garrett, who Ford has clear memories of, had been at the party, he would obviously be a witness in the matter, and someone the FBI would want to interview. His presence would also raise the question of why Ford has never mentioned him. She remembers a party from 36 years ago, remembers five people who were there, and doesn’t remember that the person she was closest to at the time was also there? . . .
Read the rest of that by Byron York. There is something definitely wrong with Professor Ford’s story, but we don’t know what it is. Neither the Democrats nor the media (but I repeat myself) seem to have any interest in examining her story critically. Maybe the FBI will.
UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers!
