Pulling out the equivalent of the Scarlet Letter against 53-year-old Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanugh Sept. 13, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) opened up a can of worms, most likely torpedoing the nomination. Holding the letter of 51-year-old psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford back in June describing a sexual assault by a drunken 17-year-old Kavanaugh at a high school party, Feinstein dropped the bomb, raising grave concerns about Kavanaugh’s nomination. Retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Az.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said today he wanted to delay the Sept. 20 Committee vote before Ford’s story could be vetted. Ford came forward today to the Washington Post, detailing the tale of Kavanaugh, a drunken high school senior, groping her in a bedroom, covering her mouth to stop her from screaming. If that weren’t bad enough, Ford was only 15-years-of-age.
While many Republicans on the Judiciary Committee thought Feinstein dealt from the bottom of the deck, the fact that Ford has gone public changes everything. “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time,” Kavanaugh said. While there’s nothing wrong with Kavanaugh’s denials, there’s something very wrong when someone makes an allegation of this kind in today’s “#Me-too” movement atmosphere. While Flake’s the first senator to call for a delay in the vote, Ford’s potential closed-door Judiciary Committee testimony isn’t going to help Kavanaugh. Feinstein already referred Ford’s explicit letter to the FBI for further vetting, another nightmare for the GOP. With Ford coming forward to give the murky details of a high-school party encounter with Kavanaugh, the burden of proof shifts to Kavanaugh to explain this away.
Now a psych professor at Palo Alto University, Ford has released 2011 transcripts of her couples’ counseling sessions in which she shared details of the traumatic incident with her husband present. Kavanaugh can deny Fords’s allegations all he wants but there’s already proof that she dealt with the trauma in counseling. “If they push forward without any attempt with hearing what she’s had to say, I’m not comfortable voting
yes . . . we need to hear from her,” Flake told Politico. Other Republicans, like Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), are not likely to vote for Kavanaugh on the Senate floor without hearing from Ford. When the Committee hears from Ford, unless she’s a complete nut job, Kavanaugh’s not likely to have the votes needed for confirmation. Just listening to Ford’s self-report, no matter how distorted, will cause enough doubt to sink Kavanaugh.
Whatever complaints Democrats registered about not getting all of Kavanaugh’s Bush-43 records, they pale in comparison to allegations of sexual assault. With the “#Me-too” movement in full swing due to the likes of comedian Bill Cosby and former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, it’s highly politically incorrect to go back to the good old boy’s approach. Whatever the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution of sexual assault, the fact that a witness comes forward telling her personal story cannot be dismissed by U.S. senators or anyone else. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) isn’t going to be able to stop Ford from coming to the Committee to testify. When she does, Committee members will hear ugly details of forced groping, plus kidnapping, preventing Ford from screaming by forcibly covering her mouth. No one can ignore that.
Whether or not Kavanaugh recalls what happened, certainly given his inebriated state, doesn’t detract one iota from Ford’s story. “The Chairman and Ranking Member routinely hold bipartisan staff calls with nominees when updates are made to nominees’ background files,” Grassley’s office said in a statement. Adding something like sexual assault to one’s file isn’t a good thing. Republicans are kidding themselves thinking that this is going to go away. Once Ford testifies behind closed doors, if it gets that far, no one’s going to pull a 1991 Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill debacle, when Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Thomas of sexual harassment while she clerked as a young attorney. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) conceded that he was ready to listen to Ford if she “wished to provide information to the Committee.” Retiring Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said he looked forward to Ford’s testimony.
Whether admitted to or not by the White House or GOP members of Congress, Kavanaugh’s nomination has been unofficially scuttled. There’s no way, in today’s “#Me-Too” atmosphere that elected officials can ignore, dismiss or discount the personal testimony of a woman coming forward with her story of sexual assault. No background check in Kavanaugh’s past was forced to look at Ford’s allegation because Ford didn’t come forward. Unless the GOP can prove some nefarious Democrat plot to sabotage Kavanaugh’s nomination, the Committee can’t ignore Ford’s personal testimony. Pushing a partisan vote on Kavanaugh now would damage the GOP heading into the Midterm elections, potentially creating riptides against Republicans. Given Ford’s background as a psychology professor, she’s going to have added credibility telling her story to the Committee.
