Lying Bullyboy Kavanaugh Goes Full Trump, Reverses Disaster

 

Brett Kavanaugh gave his endangered Supreme Court nomination new life on Sept. 27 with apparently perjured testimony and by playing the victim during a hearing on sexual assault charges that was rigged by his Republican backers.

Kavanaugh's emotional mixture of self-pitying tears, obvious lies and belligerence towards Democratic senators followed President Trump's rhetorical model of "deny, deny, deny" and vicious political partisanship.

Update: The Senate Judiciary Committee meeting approved by a party line 11-10 vote the Kavanaugh nomination but with Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona announcing in a dramatic reversal that his Senate floor vote would be contingent on an FBI investigation of up to one week on sexual misconduct allegations against the candidate.

Trump, formally accused by 19 women of sexual assault or other sexual misconduct, portrayed himself as a victim in a rambling, 80-minute press conference on Sept. 26 in which he complained about mistreatment of Kavanaugh.

brett kavanaugh nbc cropped sept 27 2018The nominee, shown in an NBC News photo at left Thursday snarling his comments at Democrats, delivered a hoked-up temper tantrum that appeared to salvage his hopes for his confirmation following three major accusations of sexual misconduct and Kavanaugh's robotic performance on Monday night during a Fox television interview.

The interview came after Fox News commentators Mike Wallace and Brit Hume had described the nominee's accuser Christine Brasey Ford as highly credible in her earlier sworn testimony. 

The majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled a vote on the nomination for 9:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 28.

Dr. Brasey, right, told the committee that she was "100 percent" certain that Kavanaugh had been  the drunken teenager who had tried to rape her at a party when she was 15, thereby inflicting lifelong emotional trauma.

christine blasey ford sept 27 2018Several former prosecutors now serving as cable television commentators, including Cynthia Aksne and Daniel Goldman on MSNBC, described the witness's mixture of first-person experience and expertise as a psychologist as the most effective witness that they had ever seen.

The witness said that she remained reluctant to step forward publicly until reporters began storming her home and workplace earlier this month.

At times during her testimony, she choked up as she described that she was "terrified" at the concept of reliving the trauma of what she called an attempted rape at a teenagers' house party in 1982. During the ordeal, she said she had feared being accidentally choked to death when, she says, Kavanaugh attempted to silence her with a hand over her mouth while she screamed.

Kavanaugh, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge in the District of Columbia, began his afternoon testimony by weeping repeatedly as he denounced Democrats for what he called smearing him and ruining his family and career.

Snowflake Kavanaugh Whines, Ducks FBI Probe

Democrats repeatedly pressed Kavanaugh on whether he would join them in requesting an FBI investigation of missing witnesses and other evidence to clear up questions on whether he or his accuser was more credible.

Kavanaugh, while complaining about false claims, ducked the question every time, saying he would defer to "the committee."

chuck grassley fox disappointed allegationCommittee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, angrily intervened by insisting there was no need for an FBI investigation because the committee staff had already undertaken all necessary investigation.

Not surprisingly, Grassley failed to note that the committee staff was controlled by the majority and had been caught in several mini-scandals congruent with a hearing procedures rigged to heavily favor the Republican nominee and without normal input from the Democratic minority.

As indicated by the Fox News graphic at left, Grassley has been complaining about the confirmation process even though he has been strong-arming it by withholding vast quantities of documents and cooperation with the minority party normal in Senate confirmation inquiries.

The Grassley committee scandals include the vow of committee chief of staff Mike Davis that Kavanaugh would be confirmed no matter what the evidence. Also, the committee had had to fire its temporary staffer Garrett Ventry, loaned to the committee from the right-wing firm CRC Public Relations, after it was revealed that Ventry had been fired because of sexual harassment on his previous job.

Ventry and the committee's integrity had also been compromised because CRC Public Relations has been handling the main national advertising from the Judicial Crisis Network advocating Kavanaugh's confirmation and for Edward Whelan, a think tank president caught trying to blame an innocent man for the attempted rape of Blasey.

So, any reference to a committee investigation as fair was preposterous on its face.

Among the Grassley-ordered procedures was for Republicans to use a sex crimes prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell of Arizona, to ask questions on behalf of the all-male GOP majority.

brett kavanaugh 1982 calendars released judiciary committeeBut the chairman suddenly granted GOP Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina extra time to replace Mitchell, which  Graham proceeded to do with his angry and insulting partisan tirade against Democrats.

This was shortly Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois had challenged Kavanaugh on why he did not want an FBI investigation.

Then Mitchell appeared to have established a damaging admission from Kavanaugh that his calendars from 1982, which the nominee cited to show he could not possibly have been at a party with Brasey, seemed to show an evening on July 1 when he met with his friend Mark Judge and others for an evening that could have fit the circumstances.

Brasey alleged that Judge was present in the bedroom with Kavanaugh during the attempted rape.

Slate described the pivotal moment in Thursday's hearing in its column There’s an Entry on Kavanaugh’s 1982 Calendar That Supports Ford’s Story Better Than His Own. Another commentator wrote of this pivotal juncture:

The moment Rachel Mitchell squeezed Kavanaugh to admit that "skis" was an oblique reference to beer, and seeing the name "Judge" in that July 1 entry, Lindsay Graham immediately realized that Mitchell was doing her job too well; that's when Graham and his majority agreed to breach their own procedure of supposedly having Mitchell examine BOTH WITNESSES.

Judge, who wrote a book about his debauched youth, has denied via a statement from his lawyer to the committee that he was present at any party with Kavanaugh and Brasey. But judge has been hiding at a beach house unwilling to testify despite repeated demands and requests from Democrats to have him interviewed by trained FBI investigators and brought before the committee and cross-examined.

Raw Partisanship

christine blasey ford brett kavanaugh sept 28 2018

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh separately took oaths before their testimony on Sept. 27, 2018

Other Republicans for the most part then used their time to denounce Democrats, thus supporting Kavanaugh's anger and expressions of victimhood. Yet Kavanaugh's entire career prior to his 2006 elevation to the federal bench has been marked not simply by involvement in partisan right-wing politics but involvement in some of the most controversial partisan initiatives in recent national legal history.

These include his work as an assistant to Republican Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr on the Whitewater-related probes of White House Counsel Vince Foster's death and the Clinton impeachment inquiry (including Kavanaugh's deeply personal questions regarding the Monica Lewinsky affair), the 2000 Bush v. Gore Florida vote recount whereby the Supreme Court halted the vote, and Bush administration selection of federal judges and approval of torture.

republican elephant logoKavanaugh, despite his record of extreme partisanship before he became a federal appellate judge in 2006, complained angrily that it was Democrats — including a bizarre reference to "revenge on behalf of the Clintons" — who were being unfair.

Republicans appeared rejuvenated by the nominee's tirade, which was unprecedented in living memory by either a judicial nominee or sitting judge against senators exercising their Constitutional role to review nominees.

Kavanaugh repeatedly interrupted Democratic senators, particularly the female senators, one of whom he demanded answers on her drinking habits. All senators were limited to just five minutes of questions by the highly unusual rules imposed by Grassley.

Missing also was enough time for Democrats to voice the vast disparity in the power of the two sides, including the White House coaching of Kavanaugh all last week and the lack of investigative resources available to her or the Democratic minority.

susan collins lisa murkowski 150x150Looking ahead to Friday's scheduled committee vote on whether to advance the nomination to the full Senate:

U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, a retiring Republican from Tennessee who had expressed a desire for an FBI investigation, announced that he would support the nomination. By many counts, that left four likely votes with no known tilt in a Senate controlled 51-49 by Republicans. They are Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (shown at left), Susan Collins of Maine (at right in the adjoining photo) and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

Truthfulness and Temperament

The GOP rigged the nomination re-hearing in many ways, including by allowing so little time for informed questioning by the senators. The absence of a non-partisan FBI investigation also left open numerous questions regarding the nominee's credibility and fairness.

One result was that the Democratic senators had little or no time to challenge numerous false or misleading statements by Kavanaugh and the other Republicans.

As one example, GOP senators repeatedly described him as having an unblemished record as an adult.

pat leahy hs In fact, the Senate refused to confirm him in 2004, the first time he was nominated for a judgeship, because of concerns about his integrity.

More recently, Sen. Pat Leahy, left, wrote an op-ed denouncing Kavanaugh as a perjurer because Leahy believes that the nominee lied during his confirmation hearing earlier this month when he denied knowing he was working with stolen U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee documents when Kavanaugh worked in the Bush White House helping judicial nominees win confirmation.

Among other omissions was the lack of extended discussion about the allegations brought in recent days by two other alleged sexual assault victims of Kavanaugh's, former Yale classmate Deborah Ramirez, right, and high school near-contemporary Julie Swetnick, each of whom reportedly seeks the ability to testify under oath in the kind of FBI investigation that the nominee is avoiding.

deborah ramirez benjamin rasmussen new yorkerAmong other omissions is that Democrats never challenged until after the hearing the repeated claim by Grassley and other Republicans that former Judiciary Chairman Joe Biden, a Democrat, had disparaged use of the FBI for investigations. Neither did Democrats challenge Kavanaugh's repeated claim four individuals identify by Brasey, including a friend of hers, had denied that they were ever at the party.

Democrats later said that Biden had been quoted out of context because he obviously relied heavily on FBI background investigations of nominees, which are routine.

Also, commentators noted after the hearing that Brasey had quoted her friend as apologizing for a lawyer' letter denying presence at the scene and said that she could not remember the situation, not that it had not occurred. That latter dispute is precisely the kind of factual dispute that could have been largely resolved by more thorough investigation.

Regarding Kavanaugh's credibility, he tripped up on several likely lies about the true meaning of off-color descriptions in his prep school yearbook. The New York Times, for example, reported in Kavanaugh’s Yearbook Page Is ‘Horrible, Hurtful’ to a Woman It Named about the dismay of a woman named by Kavanaugh an a dozen others at their all-boys prep school on the year book pages. Kavanaugh said that just meant that he was a "friend" of the contemporary whereas she and others reasonably interpreted the references to sexual innuendos that she described as "horrible" and untrue.

Those Kavanaugh obfuscations, while not hundred percent certain in each instance, in the aggregate illustrated a careerist willing to mislead senators at his confirmation hearing in a manner disqualifying for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

Finally, Kavanaugh's obvious anger and indeed hatred for Democrats, expressed in terms of unhinged conspiracy theories, represented a disqualification for the court in terms of his temperament. No Democrat or advocate for any liberal cause can reasonably expect fair treatment from the jurist Kavanaugh in the future, especially since he invoked a Biblical image during Thursday's hearing to threaten opponents of his confirmation with "the whirlwind" in the future.

What's Next?

Following the hearing, it was widely reported that President Trump was enthusiastic about the way that Kavanaugh and Lindsey had lashed out at Democrats with a fighting spirit. Trump announced via Twitter his renewed support for Kavanaugh.

As for the public, it faces the prospect of not simply losing the Republican Party to a new Trump Party but dragging the Supreme Court into even more obvious disrepute than that earned by numerous disreputable decisions.

But whatever happens, this is merely three-fifths of the way to a plan that we voiced here on the morning of Sept. 26 in a column New Kavanaugh Rape Charge? Five Ways To Thwart GOP Court Fraud.

That path can lead to Kavanaugh's installation on the Supreme Court or his liability for defamation, sexual misconduct crime or House impeachment — or all of the above.  

 senate gop judiciary

Republican U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Members

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans

  • chuck grassley officialChuck Grassley, Iowa, Chairman, right.
  • Orrin Hatch, Utah.
  • Lindsey Graham, South Carolina.
  • John Cornyn, Texas.
  • Mike Lee, Utah.
  • Ted Cruz, Texas.
  • Ben Sasse, Nebraska.
  • Jeff Flake, Arizona.

 

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Justice Integrity Project Coverage

 

Sept. 26, 2018.

brett kavanaugh 5 ways to thwart gop court fraud

Justice Integrity Project, Kavanaugh Sex Assault Charges: 5 Ways To Thwart GOP Court Fraud

By Andrew Kreig,

A new accuser has named Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Sept. 26 as being present during her long ago gang rape at a party.

But justice seekers need much tougher tactics to counter the ruthless senators and their puppet masters who are now ramming the nominee through to confirmation without an honesjulie swetnick full photo via michael avenattit investigation.

This column argues that reformers need to implement five strategies beginning today before the sham Senate hearing that is scheduled Thursday for new accusations against Kavanaugh. [The column has been updated after being published early on Wednesday, Sept. 26, which was before attorney Michael Avenatti announced the identity of his client who would make explosive charges against Kavanaugh.]

Later that morning, Avenatti released via Twitter a sworn statement by a longtime federal employee, Julie Swetnick, identifying Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge as being present for a “gang rape” that Swetnick said victimized her at one one of about of about 10 house parties she says that she attended with them in the Washington, DC area in the early 1980s. She is shown at left in a photo released by her attorney.

 

Sept. 28, 2018

Justice Integrity Project, Lying Bullyboy Kavanaugh Goes Full Trump, Reverses Disaster

By Andrew Kreig

brett kavanaugh nbc cropped sept 27 2018Brett Kavanaugh gave his endangered Supreme Court nomination new life on Sept. 27 with apparently perjured testimony and by playing the victim during a hearing on sexual assault charges that was rigged by his Republican backers.

Kavanaugh's emotional mixture of self-pitying tears, obvious lies and belligerence towards Democratic senators followed President Trump's rhetorical model of "deny, deny, deny" and vicious political partisanship.

Trump, formally accused by 19 women of sexual assault or other sexual misconduct, portrayed himself as a victim in a rambling, 80-minute press conference on Sept. 26 in which he complained about mistreatment of Kavanaugh.

The nominee, shown in an NBC News photo at left Thursday snarling his comments at Democrats, delivered a hoked-up temper tantrum that appeared to salvage his hopes for his confirmation following three major accusations of sexual misconduct and Kavanaugh's robotic performance on Monday night during a Fox television interview.christine blasey ford sept 27 2018

It came after Fox News commentators Mike Wallace and Brit Hume had described the nominee's accuser Christine Brasey Ford as highly credible in her earlier sworn testimony. 

The majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled a vote on the nomination for 9:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 28.

Dr. Brasey, right, told the committee that she was "100 percent" certain that Kavanaugh had been  the drunken teenager who had tried to rape her at a party when she was 15, thereby inflicting lifelong emotional trauma.

Several former prosecutors now serving as cable television commentators, including Cynthia Aksne and Daniel Goldman on MSNBC, described the witness's mixture of first-person experience and expertise as a psychologist as the most effective witness that they had ever seen.

 

Sept. 29, 2018

Justice Integrity Project, Senators Reach Deal For Kavanaugh Sex Claim Probe

By Andrew Kreig, Sept. 29, 2018. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court by a party line 11-10 vote on Sept. 28 but agreed also to let a key member jeff flake onegotiate for up to a week's delay for an FBI investigation before the nomination goes to the full Senate.

In a dramatic reversal Friday, Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, right, announced that he sought an FBI probe of sexual misconduct investigations before a vote by the full Senate, where Republicans hold a 51-49 majority.

Two other undecided senators, Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, announced that they would join Flake's position. That would put Kavanaugh's final approval in doubt if other senators vote as expected nearly along party lines.

 

Related News Coverage

brett kavanaugh nbc sept 27 2018 cropped reuters jim berg

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh before Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 27, 2018 (Reuters photo by Jim Berg via NBC News)

Updated

Oct. 6

washington post logoWashington Post, Divided Senate confirms Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, Seung Min Kim and John Wagner, Oct. 6, 2018. The Senate voted to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as the Supreme Court’s 114th justice on Saturday by one of the narrowest margins in the institution’s history, as police stood guard and protesters’ shouts of “shame, shame” echoed through the Senate chamber.

The 50-to-48 vote capped a brutal confirmation fight that underscored how deeply polarized the nation has become under President Trump, who has now successfully placed two justices on the nation’s highest court, cementing a conservative majority.

With Vice President Pence presiding, senators sat in their chairs and rose to cast their votes, repeatedly interrupted by protesters in the visitors’ gallery who yelled out and were removed by Capitol Police. The Supreme Court announced Kavanaugh would be sworn in later Saturday.

Oct. 1

washington post logoFBI logoWashington Post, Confusion over limits of FBI inquiry sparks new round of combat over Kavanaugh, Mike DeBonis and Josh Dawsey, Oct. 1, 2018 (print edition). The investigation into sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh will focus on two accusers, but the White House says it opposes a “fishing expedition” that could take a broader look at his credibility and behavior.

Palmer Report, Senate transcript reveals Brett Kavanaugh allegedly raped a woman in the back of a car, Bill Palmer, right, Oct. 1, 2018. With the FBI having finally received bill palmerthe green light a few hours ago to conduct an unrestricted investigation into the sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, we’re now learning that he’s been accused brett kavanaugh 1983 yearbookof having raped a woman in the back of a car.

The Senate Judiciary Committee took this accusation seriously enough that it questioned Kavanaugh (shown at left in a prep school yearbook photo) about it during private hearings – and the transcript just surfaced publicly.

The woman in question, whose identity is not known, sent a letter to Senator Kamala Harris, spelling out her accusations. The Senate Judiciary Committee read the letter to Brett Kavanaugh, asking him to respond to it. Here’s the key passage from the woman’s letter. Fair warning, this is sexually explicit and disturbing:

Kavanaugh and a friend offered me a ride home. I don’t know the other boy’s name. I was in his car to go home. His friend was behind me in the backseat. Kavanaugh kissed me forcefully. I told him I only wanted a ride home. Kavanaugh continued to grope me over my clothes, forcing his kisses on me and putting his hand under my sweater. ‘No,’ I yelled at him.

The boy in the backseat reached around, putting his hand over my mouth and holding my arm to keep me in the car. I screamed into his hand. Kavanaugh continued his forcing himself on me. He pulled up my sweater and bra exposing my breasts, and reached into my panties, inserting his fingers into my vagina. My screams were silenced by the boy in the backseat covering my mouth and groping me as well.

Kavanaugh slapped me and told me to be quiet and forced me to perform oral sex on him. He climaxed in my mouth. They forced me to go into the backseat and took turns raping me several times each. They dropped me off two blocks from my home. ‘No one will believe if you tell. Be a good girl,’ he told me.

Brett Kavanaugh’s response, according to the transcript: “Nothing — the whole thing is ridiculous. Nothing ever — anything like that, nothing. I mean, that’s — the whole thing is just a crock, farce, wrong, didn’t happen, not anything close.”

This interview took place six days ago, and the transcript was just released today. You can read the entire exchange starting on page thirteen.

us senate logoU.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Transcript of staff interview with Judge Brett Kavanaugh on allegations of sexual misconduct, Alderson Court Reporting, released on Oct. 1, 2018, dated Sept. 26, 2018 (19 pages with four-page index). 

Future of Freedom Foundation, Opinion: Trump’s Sham FBI “Investigation” of Kavanaugh, Jacob G. Hornberger, right, Oct. 1, 2018. On the eve of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote on whether to send President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the full Senate for a vote on confirmation, Republican senators agreed to do so on the condition that the FBI conduct a further background investigation of Kavanaugh.

jacob hornberger headshotWhat’s wrong with Trump’s severe limitation on the FBI’s further background investigation of Brett Kavanaugh? It doesn’t permit the FBI to investigate the possibility that Kavanaugh has committed a brand new offense — the offense of perjury, which is a federal felony offense.

Kavanaugh supporters emphasize that he has been the subject of several FBI background checks already. They miss two critically important points:

One, those background checks were conducted before the FBI had any information regarding the sex assault that Ford has accused him of. Two, those background checks were conducted before Kavanaugh’s testimony last Thursday. Why is that important? Because there is the possibility that Kavanaugh committed perjury during his testimony at that hearing.

For some laymen (i.e., non-lawyers) perjury might seem like no big deal and certainly not enough to keep a lawyer or a judge from becoming a Supreme Court justice. As I explain in my article, “Summon Mark Judge to Testify in Kavanaugh Hearing,” to every member of the legal profession perjury is an extremely grave offense, especially for a lawyer or a judge, and a clear justification for disqualifying any lawyer or judge who has committed perjury from serving on the U.S. Supreme Court.

In fact, as I state in my article, in my opinion that is precisely the reason why the American Bar Association, which has 400,000 members, and the dean of the Yale Law School, where Kavanaugh got his law degree, immediately withdrew their support for his nomination after Ford and Kavanaugh testified until an additional background investigation was conducted.

oenearthlogoOpEdNews, Opinion: Sex, Lies, and Hypocrisy: Kavanaugh's Glass House, Carl Petersen, Oct. 1, 2018. Much like Dr. Christine Ford, Monica Lewinsky's life was turned upside down by the glare of someone else's spotlight.

While Brett Kavanaugh asserted that engaging in sexual relations with Bill Clinton turned "her life into a shambles," from Lewinsky's point of view it was his boss, Kenneth Starr, "who turned [her] 24-year-old life into a living hell."

Looking back on the 1990s with the experience of the #MeToo era, there are questions that should have been asked about the most powerful man in the world having sexual relations with an employee.

monica lewinsky may 1967Lewinsky, left, has always maintained that the relationship was consensual, but "power imbalances -- and the ability to abuse them -- do exist even when the sex has been consensual." As a society, have we established where the lines are?

Unfortunately, Kavanaugh (shown below right during his snarling Senate confirmation testimony Thursday)did not seem interested in this line of questioning. Instead, he was infatuated with the most unimportant part of the story - the details of the sex acts.

brett kavanaugh nbc cropped sept 27 2018Given this history, one has to wonder what Lindsey Graham was thinking as he bloviated that if Kavanaugh was looking "for a fair process, [then] he came to the wrong town at the wrong time." When does he think that this poisoned, political atmosphere began?

bill clinton wIf the nominee thinks that the "confirmation process has become a national disgrace," how does he feel today about what he put Lewinsky through and what it did to her and her family? If "the idea of going easy on [Clinton, left] at the questioning [was] abhorrent to [him]," his current outrage should be directed at the Republican majority in the Senate.

By not investigating all of the accusations, they are the ones who are avoiding the responsibility of providing informed consent to his lifetime nomination to the highest court in the land.

Of course, this ignores the important distinction between Kavanaugh's apparent obsession with Clinton's sex life and the charges that may derail his assertion to the Supreme Court; if Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is telling the truth, then Kavanaugh acted without consent. This alleged attempted rape represents "callous and disgusting behavior that has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle."

washington post logoWashington Post, In memo, outside prosecutor argues why she would not bring criminal charges against Kavanaugh, Seung Min Kim, Oct. 1, 2018 (print edition). The outside prosecutor Senate Republicans hired to lead the questioning in last week’s hearing about the sexual assault allegations against Brett M. Kavanaugh is arguing in a new memo why she would not bring criminal charges against the Supreme Court nominee.

rachel mitchell 2011 screenshotIn the five-page memo, obtained by the Washington Post, Rachel Mitchell (shown in a file photo) outlines more than half a dozen reasons why she thinks the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford — who has accused Kavanaugh of assaulting her at a house in suburban Maryland when they were teenagers in the early 1980s — has some key inconsistencies.

“A ‘he said, she said’ case is incredibly difficult to prove. But this case is even weaker than that,” Mitchell writes in the memo, sent Sunday night to all Senate Republicans. “Dr. Ford identified other witnesses to the event, and those witnesses either refuted her allegations or failed to corroborate them.”

Mitchell continued: “For the reasons discussed below, I do not think that a reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the [Senate Judiciary] Committee. Nor do I believe that this evidence is sufficient to satisfy the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.”

The memo is likely to prompt significant pushback from Democratic senators, who have argued that Ford is not on trial and that Kavanaugh is merely interviewing for a job. But the memo is clearly aimed at assuaging the concerns of a handful of GOP senators who are on the fence about whether to vote to confirm Kavanaugh and are considering whose story — Ford’s or Kavanaugh’s — to believe. The FBI is now investigating Ford’s accusations, as well as those of a second woman, Deborah Ramirez.

Sept. 28

jeff flake oRoll Call, After Last-Second Talks to Delay, Judiciary Committee Advances Kavanaugh Nomination, John T. Bennett, Sept. 28, 2018. Flake joins other Republicans to set up floor vote despite call for delay. The Senate Judiciary Committee, after a gut-wrenching spectacle of a hearing Thursday and last-second negotiations among Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., right, and panel Democrats to delay a floor vote, voted to advance Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination to the chamber floor despite multiple sexual misconduct allegations against him.

The Friday vote was along party lines, 11-10, with all Democrats voting against him after siding with Christine Blasey Ford, who testified before the panel for four hours Thursday about her contention that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and intended to rape her in the early 1980s. She told the panel she came forward because she does not believe he should be a high court justice with a lifetime appointment.

“I think it would proper to delay the floor vote for up to but more than one week in order to let the FBI to do an investigation limited in time and scope to the current allegations that are there,” Flake said before the roll was called.

ny times logoNew York Times, A Bitter Nominee, Questions of Neutrality, and a Damaged Supreme Court, Adam Liptak, Sept. 28, 2018. In the first round of his Supreme Court confirmation hearings early this month, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh kept his cool under hostile questioning, stressed his independence, and exhibited the calm judicial demeanor that characterized his dozen years on a prestigious appeals court bench.

“The Supreme Court,” he said, “must never be viewed as a partisan institution.”

His performance on Thursday, responding to accusations of sexual misconduct at a hearing of the same Senate committee, sent a different message. Judge Kavanaugh was angry and emotional, embracing the language of slashing partisanship. His demeanor raised questions about his neutrality and temperament, and threatened the already fragile reputation of the Supreme Court as an institution devoted to law rather than politics.

“This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit,” he said, “fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.”

In a sharp break with decorum, Judge Kavanaugh responded to questions about his drinking from two Democratic senators — Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island — with questions of his own about theirs. He later apologized to Ms. Klobuchar.

ny times logoNew York Times, Kavanaugh Denies Sexual Assault Charges and Attacks Democrats in Scathing Testimony, Staff report, Sept. 28, 2018 (print edition). At an extraordinary hearing, Brett M. Kavanaugh denied that he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford when they were in high school. In an angry statement to the Senate Judicial Committee he said the Supreme Court confirmation process had become “a national disgrace.”

washington post logoWashington Post, Kavanaugh hearing turns partisan as GOP senators lash out at treatment of nominee, Seung Min Kim, Ann E. Marimow, Mike DeBonis and Elise Viebeck, Sept. 28, 2018 (print edition). Sen. Graham rejects allegations, rips Democrats in a furious speech.

“To my Republican colleagues, if you vote no, you’re legitimizing the most despicable thing I’ve seen in my time in politics,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said.

Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh called his confirmation process a “national disgrace” and denied sexual assault allegations, which Christine Blasey Ford detailed in testimony earlier.

washington post logochristine blasey ford sept 27 2018Washington Post, 3 takeaways from the Kavanaugh hearing so far, Amber Phillips​, Sept. 28, 2018 (print edition). Republicans struggled to show they are taking it seriously. Meanwhile, Christine Blasey Ford, shown at right, cut a sympathetic, down-to-earth figure.

1. This isn’t going well for Republicans

2. Meanwhile, Ford came across as credible, emotional and sympathetic

3. Republicans' decision to hand their questions over to a female prosecutor is seeming questionable.

washington post logoWashington Post, American Bar Association calls for FBI investigation into Kavanaugh allegations, delay in confirmation votes, Meagan Flynn and
Seung Min Kim, Sept. 28, 2018. The American Bar Association called on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday evening to halt the confirmation vote for Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, saying it should not move forward until an FBI investigation into the sexual assault allegations against him can be completed.

“The basic principles that underscore the Senate’s constitutional duty of advice and consent on federal judicial nominees require nothing less than a careful examination of the accusations and facts by the FBI,” ABA President.

Deadspin via YouTube,

%20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Humor/Advocacy: Here’s Brett Kavanaugh Mentioning Beer During His Senate Hearing (34 mins.), Staff report, Sept. 28, 2018.

washington post logoWashington Post, Several Democrats walk out of Kavanaugh meeting in protest, Seung Min Kim and John Wagner, Sept. 28, 2018. Senate committee decides along party lines to vote on nomination this afternoon. Red-state Democrat Sen. Joe Donnelly said he would vote against Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh. The Republicans had been courting him as well as Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.).

washington post logoWashington Post, ‘Look at me when I’m talk­ing to you!’: Crying protester confronts Sen. Flake after he says he'll vote for nominee, Lindsey Bever​, Sept. 28, 2018. Two women tearfully and loudly confronted the Arizona Republican in an el­e­va­tor, tell­ing Sen. Jeff Flake that he was dis­miss­ing the pain of sex­ual as­sault survivors.

After Sen. Jeff Flake’s announcement that he would, in fact, vote to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, the emotional debate over the confirmation spilled into the halls of Congress, on live television, as two women tearfully and loudly confronted the Arizona Republican in an el­e­va­tor, tell­ing Flake that he was dis­miss­ing the pain of sex­ual as­sault survivors.

“What you are doing is allowing some­one who ac­tu­al­ly vio­lat­ed a woman to sit in the Su­preme Court,” one woman shout­ed during a live CNN broadcast as Flake was making his way to a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting. “This is hor­rible. You have chil­dren in your fam­i­ly. Think a­bout them.”

washington post logoWashington Post, Here’s where Kavanaugh’s sworn testimony was misleading or wrong, Philip Bump, Sept. 28, 2018. From obvious falsehoods about his drinking to misrepresentations of exonerating evidence.

The Intercept, Kavanaugh’s High School, Georgetown Prep, Warned Parents in 1990 of “Sexual or Violent Behavior” at Parties, Jon Schwarz and Camille Baker, Sept. 28, 2018. According to a 1990 article in the Washington Post, the headmasters from seven prestigious Washington, D.C.-area private schools sent a joint letter that year to parents, warning them that their children had developed a party culture that included heavy drinking leading to “sexual or violent behavior.”

One of the schools was Georgetown Prep, from which Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh graduated in 1983. Christine Blasey Ford, who during congressional testimony on Thursday described being sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh in 1982, attended another of the schools, Holton-Arms.

The Post article also reported that before the letter was sent, Georgetown Prep had individually “held a conference with parents to discuss the problem of unsupervised parties.”

Malcolm Coates, then the headmaster of the Landon School in Bethesda, Maryland, is quoted as saying that the schools decided to write the letter jointly “to give it more impact. … The fact that seven schools decided it was enough of a problem to address it is significant.”

lindsey grahamRoll Call, Lindsey Graham to Democrats: ‘I’ll Remember This,’ John T. Bennett, Sept. 28, 2018. South Carolina senator could be Judiciary chairman next year if GOP holds Senate.

Lindsey Graham, right, who could become Senate Judiciary Committee chairman next year, warned his Democratic colleagues Friday that he will remember how they handled the Brett Kavanaugh saga.

“If I am chairman, next year, I’m going to remember this,” the South Carolina Republican said before a planned vote on the Supreme Court nominee.

“There’s the process before Kavanaugh and the process after Kavanaugh. If you want to vet the nominee, you can. If you want to delay things until after the election, you cannot. If you try to destroy somebody, you will not get away with it.”

wayne madesen report logo

Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), Senators stuck in their closets, Wayne Madsen, Sept. 27, 2018 (subscription required). Two Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee have had good reason to attack women who have come forward with allegations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted them while they were teens.

Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Orrin Hatch of Utah fear that if any credence is given to Kavanaugh's accusers men who they have accosted in the past may be emboldened to reveal their stories.

Legal Schnauzer, Opinion: Lindsey Graham and Orrin Hatch are staunch Brett Kavanaugh supporters, probably because they want to keep gay accusers from their own pasts underground, Roger Shuler, Sept. 28, 2018. Two Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are closeted gays who likely are staunch supporters of Brett Kavanaugh — and doubters of his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford — because they want to ensure that ugly incidents from their own pasts never surface, according to a report from a D.C.-based investigative journalist.

Wayne Madsen reports that Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) are well known among Washington insiders as closeted homosexuals with histories of having inappropriate physical contact with men -- not unlike the conduct Ford spelled out against Kavanaugh in yesterday's contentious Senate hearing.

Sept. 27

Roll Call, Senate Judiciary to Vote Friday on Kavanaugh Nomination, Todd Ruger, Sept. 27, 2018. Decision came after nearly nine hours of testimony from nominee and accuser

New York Magazine, Opinion: Why Brett Kavanaugh’s Hearings Convinced Me That He’s Guilty, Jonathan Chait, Sept. 27, 2018. I think Brett Kavanaugh is probably lying about having sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford, and many other things, and has decided from the beginning to say what he has to in order to fulfill his career ambition.

There is, however, at least some, small chance that he is telling the truth when he professes his innocence. And that small chance gives me some sympathetic human reaction to his emotional testimonial. If he is somehow innocent, as he claims, he has been subject to a horrifying and humiliating ordeal.

That, however, does not justify confirming Kavanaugh to a lifelong position on the Supreme Court. He has, for one thing, all but abandoned the posture of impartiality demanded of a judge.

A ranting Kavanaugh launched angry, evidence-free charges against Senate Democrats. Why they took this revenge against Kavanaugh, rather than the first justice who was appointed after the 2016 elections, when Democrats’ anger over both the election and the treatment of Merrick Garland ran hotter, he did not say. Kavanaugh does not seem able to imagine even the possibility that Democrats actually believe the women accusing him of sexual assault. He is consumed with paranoid, partisan rage.

The method Republicans have used to defend Kavanaugh has consisted of suppressing most of the evidence that could be brought to bear in the hearing, and then complaining about the lack of evidence. “Unless something new comes forward, you have just an emotional accusation and an emotional denial without corroboration,” said Senator Lindsey Graham. Conservative columnist Kimberly Strassel argued, “The standard here isn’t where you ‘look’ or ‘sound’ ‘credible.’ It is whether you provide evidence.”

Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh and GOP prosecutor Rachel Mitchell just before Republicans replaced her

Slate, There’s an Entry on Kavanaugh’s 1982 Calendar That Supports Ford’s Story Better Than His Own, Matthew Zeitlin, Sept. 27, 2018 (2:46 mins). Much of Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony Tuesday focused on calendars he kept in the summer of 1982, where he detailed a few months that consisted mostly of hanging out with friends and sports camps and, Kavanaugh pointed out, few weekends spent in the Washington area as he traveled to the beach and other summer destinations.

brett kavanaugh 1982 calendars released judiciary committeeHe insisted that his calendars proved he could not have been present at a gathering like the one described by accuser Christine Blasey Ford — a small group of friends drinking at a house when no parents were home.* Kavanaugh maintained that he recorded all his social engagements and that no entry on his calendar matches the vague outlines of the get-together Ford detailed. But one entry shows that he went “to Timmy’s for skis w/Judge, Tom, PJ, Bernie, Squi.”

Ford had identified Mark Judge as in the room while Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted her and said that “P.J.” — a man named Patrick Smyth — was elsewhere at the gathering. (Smyth denied to the Judiciary Committee being present at any such gathering.) Ford also noted that it appeared that Judge and Kavanaugh had been drinking beforehand and were far more intoxicated than the other people there.

In Thursday’s hearing, Kavanaugh was asked about the July 1 entry by Rachel Mitchell, the lawyer representing Republican senators, and replied, “It looks like we went over to Timmy’s” and identified the other boys who’d joined him. That was as far as that line of questioning went.

Palmer Report, The real reason Lindsey Graham just threw it all away, Bill Palmer, Sept. 27, 2018. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has spent the afternoon using his testimony to unwittingly demonstrate that he’s a deeply mentally unstable individual. Then Republican Senator Lindsey Graham had such an unhinged meltdown of his own, even Kavanaugh seemed to have been taken aback by it. The question, of course, is why Graham is suddenly throwing it all away. The answer cannot possibly be as simple as some cable news pundits are suggesting.

The popular narrative is that Lindsey Graham wants to be Donald Trump’s Attorney General. Okay, sure, that’s theoretically possible. But even if that were the case, why would he be willing to go this far with it? Graham has now thrown away his reputation and his legacy, and for what? An Attorney General gig that probably wouldn’t last six months before Trump is ousted anyway? He’s only sixty-three years old, and he’d be sacrificing the remainder of his Senate career for what would basically be White House temp work. That doesn’t make sense. So let’s talk about something that does.

Back in December of 2016, Lindsey Graham admitted to CNN that his emails were hacked during the election. This makes sense, as hackers targeted many of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential opponents on both sides of both parties. Considering the complete and frantic change in Graham’s behavior toward Trump this year, the most logical conclusion would be that either Trump himself or a pro-Trump entity is using Graham’s emails to blackmail him. For him to so eagerly throw everything away, the blackmail material must be even more damaging than the damage that Graham is voluntarily doing to himself.

So if Lindsey Graham is throwing his life away in the hope of convincing Donald Trump to give him the Attorney General job, it could only be because Graham thinks he can use the AG position to help protect himself against whatever he’s being blackmailed over. Only a complete idiot would throw his life, career, and reputation away just so he could briefly hold a job in a failing presidential administration that will soon be over, unless there’s far more to it. So let’s stop with the suggestions that Graham is simply eyeing a promotion here and nothing more; that stops making sense once you think it through.

HuffPost via Yahoo, Man Who Pushed To Ask Bill Clinton Sexually Explicit Questions Bemoans Dirty Politics, Amanda Terkel, Sept. 27, 2018. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh came out swinging on Thursday, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that his confirmation process had become a “national disgrace” and bemoaning the partisan politics around it.

“The Constitution gives the Senate an important role in the confirmation process, but you have replaced advice and consent with search and destroy,” he said angrily in his opening remarks. “Since my nomination in July, there has been a frenzy on the left to come up with something, anything to block my confirmation.”

The dirty politics Kavanaugh is alleging should be no surprise to him, since he spent part of his career in that world.

Kavanaugh cut his teeth in Washington working for what Democrats consider to be the most brazen and partisan crusade in modern politics: Ken Starr’s investigations into President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. He spent more than three years working for the independent counsel, who was looking into various scandals surrounding Clinton and his wife, Hillary.

Kavanaugh personally urged Starr to expand the Whitewater investigation to include looking at the death of White House staffer Vince Foster, a controversy that was a partisan attempt to use a man’s death to go after the Clintons.

Foster died by suicide in 1993, a conclusion reached by U.S. Park Police (his body was found in a park) and the FBI. In fact, multiple investigations concurred that it was a suicide.

Yet in March 1995, after those reviews, Kavanaugh called for a “full-fledged investigation” into Foster’s death. That inquiry helped validate right-wing conspiracy theorists who believed that the Clintons killed Foster, and the matter outraged Foster’s family.

During the Monica Lewinsky inquiry, Kavanaugh pressed Starr to ask Clinton sexually graphic questions about his relationship with the White House intern.

The Hill, Jesuit magazine calls for Kavanaugh nomination to be withdrawn, Tal Axelrod, Sept. 27, 2018. The editors of America Magazine, a Jesuit publication, called on President Trump to withdraw Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination.

The piece was published after Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, a woman who accused Kavanaugh of trying to rape her in 1982 at a house party, testified before of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the allegations.

The editors wrote a piece in July praising Trump's nomination of Kavanaugh to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy and Kavanaugh’s pro-life stance.

“Judge Kavanaugh is a textualist who is suspicious of the kind of judicial innovation that led to the court’s ruling in Roe. That decision removed a matter of grave moral concern—about which there was and remains no public moral consensus—from the democratic process,” they wrote at the time.

Kavanaugh attended Georgetown Preparatory School, a Jesuit high school.

The magazine’s reversal reflects the tumult into which sexual misconduct allegations have thrown Kavanaugh’s confirmation process.

Roll Call, Opinion: Either Kavanaugh Goes Down or the Republicans Do, Walter Shapiro, Sept. 27, 2018. Women — and many men — will still remember Thursday’s hearing when they vote in 2018 and 2020.

Women of all political persuasions — and a hell of a lot of men — will be remembering this hearing when they go to the polls in 2018 and 2020. And while it is dangerous to overexaggerate the political influence of a single event in our hyper-partisan times, Thursday’s testimony has the potential to be seismic.

It wasn’t even what Ford said — though her repeated recollections of Kavanaugh laughing during the alleged sexual attack were haunting — so much as her mixture of composure and emotion as she said it. This was a wrenching event in her life and she had no hesitation in testifying that Brett Kavanaugh was one her two sexual assailants.

Every strategic decision that the Senate Judiciary Republicans made accentuated the power of her testimony. Normally, a she-said-he-said confrontation over factual events leaves everyone with an open mind having doubts about the truth. That obviously was the GOP theory in refusing to allow any other witnesses other than Ford and Kavanaugh.

But it backfired when Ford seemed so compellingly honest, so desperate to be helpful, so certain of the core of her accusations. Any other witness — even Kavanaugh’s accused wingman Mark Judge — would have distracted from the clarity of Ford’s words.

washington post logoWashington Post, Kavanaugh just showed remarkable anger for a Supreme Court nominee, Aaron Blake, Sept. 27, 2018. Brett M. Kavanaugh dropped the usual nonpartisan pretense and went hard at Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Roll Call, Kavanaugh Comes Out of Gate Angry, Says Confirmation Process Is ‘National Disgrace,’ John T. Bennett, Sept. 27, 2018. An angry Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, facing sexual assault allegations, opened up his testimony Thursday by calling the situation a “national disgrace.”

He lamented that his name and that of his family have been “totally and permanently destroyed by vicious and false … accusations.”

Three women have come forward with allegations of sexual assault or sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh. Christine Blasey Ford, his first accuser who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier Thursday, has accused the nominee of sexually assaulting her at a party in the 1980s when the two were in high school. Supreme Court nominee aggressively foists blame on Democrats, accuses them of character assassination.

washington post logoWashington Post, Chuck Grassley’s heavy-handed stewardship of a very delicate hearing, Aaron Blake​, Sept. 27, 2018. Republicans have taken pains to prevent their 11 white, male committee members from talking. Grassley, though, has no choice.

washington post logoorrin hatch oWashington Post, Ford finishes her testimony, Kavanaugh to testify, Seung Min Kim, Ann E. Marimow, Mike DeBonis and Elise Viebeck​, Sept. 27, 2018. Sen. Hatch, right, calls Christine Blasey Ford an ‘attractive’ witness.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the longest-serving member of the Senate, was asked whether Ford was “credible” in her testimony. “I don’t think she’s un-credible." he said. "I think she’s an attractive, good witness."

ny times logoNew York Times, Nomination in the Balance as Kavanaugh and His Accuser Testify, Catie Edmondson, Sept. 27, 2018. Christine Blasey Ford, shown in a file photo, is set to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about her accusation that Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her. Since Dr. Blasey came forward, two christine blasey ford headshot croppedmore women have accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct at parties in high school and in college. 

An hour before the hearing, Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, held a news conference in support of Dr. Blasey, flanked by trauma experts who spoke of the difficult and often hostile cultural attitudes faced by survivors of sexual abuse.

patty murray oMs. Murray, left, was one of a number of female senators who was emboldened to run for office after watching Anita F. Hill testify in 1991, and she referenced that experience directly, calling on her colleagues to learn from their past mistakes.

“In 1991, I and millions of women across the country watched as Anita Hill was interrogated and attacked and the Senate failed this crucial test,” Ms. Murray said. holton arms school logo“Twenty-seven years later, in 2018, we need to do better and we certainly should not do worse.”

As Ms. Murray delivered her remarks, dozens of protesters supporting Dr. Blasey poured into the Hart Senate Office Building, chanting “we won’t go back” and wearing shirts that said “Believe Women.” Four young women, wearing their Holton-Arms uniforms, walked through the Hart office buildings hallways, arms linked together.Yahoo News, Analysis: Republican men — and not a single GOP woman — will be Christine Blasey Ford's interrogators on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Alexander Nazaryan, Sept. 18, 2018. Next week, Christine Blasey Ford will likely face intense questioning from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee about the truthfulness of her accusations against Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee, who she says attempted to rape her during a party in the 1980s. Her turn on Capitol Hill could decide Kavanaugh’s suddenly uncertain fate, as well as the Supreme Court’s direction for a generation.

republican elephant logoFord will face questions from the 11 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Ford will face questions from the 11 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, all of them men, with an average age of 62. (The chairman, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the second-oldest sitting senator, is 85.) In the committee’s 202-year history, it has not had a single Republican woman. Four of the 10 Democrats are women, including ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who is a few months older than Grassley. The committee has never been chaired by a woman.

The spectacle of Ford, 51, being interrogated about her sexual history by older men could present an uncomfortable sight that the White House may take great pains to avoid. The outrage over that discrepancy, however, is already building. “In the year 2018, a group of white men has essentially complete control over lifetime nominations to an entire branch of government,” tweeted Robert Reich, the former Labor secretary and current Berkeley professor. The message was retweeted more than 2,000 times

In the last 40 years, use of the judiciary to advance ideological goals has rendered the process of nominating judges highly political, with nominees evaluated on a narrow range of cultural issues, notably abortion, gun control and, until recently, gay marriage. That has tended to turn the Senate Judiciary into a hotbed of assertive ideologues, including, recently, Jeff Sessions and Ted Cruz. GOP women have made their contributions elsewhere, effectively ceding judicial nominations to their male counterparts.

Sept. 26

julie swetnick

The Hill, Avenatti releases client’s identity, allegations against Kavanaugh, Tal Axelrod, Sept. 26, 2018. Avenatti claims client has 'credible information' on Kavanaugh, ex-classmate. Michael Avenatti, the attorney representing adult film actress Stormy Daniels in her suit against President Trump released the identity of his client accusing Brett Kavanaugh of being present for a “gang rape” of which she was a victim.

michael avenatti sketchAvenatti tweeted out a sworn testimony from Julie Swetnick, shown above, in which she declares she met Kavanaugh in “approximately 1980-1981” and attended several house parties for which Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were also present.

Her affidavit states:

“I witnessed Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh drink excessively and engage in highly inappropriate conduct, including being overly aggressive with girls and not taking ‘No’ for an answer. This conduct included the fondling and grabbing of girls without their consent,” Swetnick writes.

“I also witnessed efforts by Mark Judge [shown at right], Brett Kavanaugh and others to cause girls to become inebriated and disoriented so they could then be ‘gang raped’ in a side room or bedroom by a ‘train’ of numerous boys ... These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh ... In approximately 1982, I became the victim of mark judge twitterone of these ‘gang’ or ‘train’ rapes where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present,” she added.

Avenatti wrote: "Here is a picture of my client Julie Swetnick. She is courageous, brave and honest. We ask that her privacy and that of her family be respected."

Avenatti, who has not ruled out a bid for the White House in 2020, said, “Under no circumstances should Brett Kavanaugh be confirmed absent a full and complete investigation.”

Below is my correspondence to Mr. Davis of moments ago, together with a sworn declaration from my client. We demand an immediate FBI investigation into the allegations. Under no circumstances should Brett Kavanaugh be confirmed absent a full and complete investigation.

— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) 10:42 AM - Sep 26, 2018.

washington post logoWashington Post, Kavanaugh nomination: Judge says he is victim of ‘character assassination’ as third woman comes forward, John Wagner, Sept. 26, 2018. Uncertainty looms over Kavanaugh and the GOP after new misconduct allegation.

brett kavanaugh zina bash c span sept 2018Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh [shown in a screenshot from the confirmation hearing] is scheduled to appear Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee at a high-stakes hearing. The committee will hear from Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who says President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee sexually assaulted her when both were teenagers.

Lawmakers from both parties and lawyers for Kavanaugh and Ford maneuvered for advantage on the eve of the hearing, and President Trump weighed in on the fate of his nominee.

12:50 p.m.: Trump attacks Avenatti as ‘a total low-life!’

President Trump on Wednesday lashed out at Michael Avenatti, the lawyer representing a new accuser of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh.

“Avenatti is a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, like he did on me and like he is now doing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh,” Trump said in a tweet. “He is just looking for attention and doesn’t want people to look at his past record and relationships - a total low-life!”

Avenatti also represents Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who was paid by a personal attorney for Trump to remain quiet about an alleged decade-old affair with Trump.

On Wednesday, Avenatti revealed that he is representing Julie Swetnick, who said Kavanaugh was physically abusive toward girls in high school and present at a house party in 1982 where she says she was the victim of a “gang” rape.

12:45 p.m.: Grassley says new accuser won’t affect Thursday’s hearing

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said the emergence of a third accuser would not affect the hearing scheduled Thursday at which the panel will hear from Christine Blasey Ford about her allegations of sexual assault against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Speaking to reporters, Grassley cited Ford’s welfare. “I feel we shouldn’t disadvantage Dr. Ford any more than she’s already been disadvantaged,” he said.

12:30: Kavanaugh says third accuser’s allegations are ‘from the Twilight Zone’

Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on Wednesday dismissed the allegations of a third accuser as “ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone.” Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh is scheduled to appear Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee at a high-stakes hearing. The committee will hear from Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who says President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee sexually assaulted her when both were teenagers.

Lawmakers from both parties and lawyers for Kavanaugh and Ford maneuvered for advantage on the eve of the hearing, and President Trump weighed in on the fate of his nominee.

washington post logosupreme court graphicWashington Post, Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell emerges as GOP choice to question Kavanaugh and accuser at hearing, Sean Sullivan, Josh Dawsey and Rosalind S. Helderman, Sept. 26, 2018 (print edition). Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell has emerged as Senate Republicans’ choice to question Brett M. Kavanaugh and the woman who has accused the Supreme Court nominee of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, according to two people familiar with the decision.

Mitchell, the sex crimes bureau chief for the Maricopa County Attorney’s office in Phoenix, is the leading candidate to query the two at Thursday’s highly anticipated hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to the individuals.

They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it on the record. A registered Republican, Mitchell has worked for the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for 26 years.

Sept. 26

brett kavanaugh cspan hearing sept 4 2018 Custom

 washington post logoWashington Post, Brett Kavanaugh has no good choices anymore, Deanna Paul, Sept. 26, 2018. Allegations of decades-old sexual misconduct resurfaced days before Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh was all but set to sail through his confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court. Kavanaugh categorically denied each claim of misconduct in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee and in an interview with Fox News on Monday, vowing to fight the accusations and defend himself.

The controversial nominee is faced with two unattractive options: withdraw or testify at a second hearing Thursday. He has pledged to do the latter, though either leaves his name tarnished.

“It’s difficult to imagine an exit strategy that’s not personally and professionally devastating for Kavanaugh,” Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University Law School professor, told The Washington Post on Tuesday. Those encouraging the federal judge to withdraw are telling him to cut his losses, Turley said. But the losses are quite considerable.

ny times logoNew York Times, Kavanaugh’s Calendar Portrays Party-Filled Summer for Supreme Court Nominee, Nicholas Fandos, Sept. 26, 2018. The Senate Judiciary Committee released the handwritten calendar pages kept by a teenage Brett Kavanaugh from the summer of 1982. Further clouding Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation, a third woman has come forward to accuse him of misconduct during high school.

brett kavanaugh 1982 calendars released judiciary committeeThe Senate Judiciary Committee released calendar pages [one is shown] from the summer of 1982 on Wednesday that paint an image of a party-hopping Brett M. Kavanaugh in high school, complicating his self-drawn portrait of a diligent student obsessed mainly with sports and reaching the top of his class

At the same time, lawyers for the woman who has accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her that summer, Christine Blasey Ford, gave the committee four affidavits — one from Dr. Blasey’s husband and three from friends — stating that she had told them in recent years that President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee had assaulted her in high school.

Released as both sides prepare for an extraordinary public hearing before the Judiciary Committee on Thursday, neither disclosure proves or disproves the cases that Dr. Blasey or Judge Kavanaugh have sought to advance, but Democratic senators are likely to use the calendars to question how truthful Judge Kavanaugh has been about his younger days. And although the affidavits suggest that Dr. Blasey’s story has been consistent, Republicans are more likely to focus on the lack of contemporaneous evidence that could corroborate her story.

ny times logoNew York Times, What We Know About Rachel Mitchell, the Arizona Prosecutor Set to Question Kavanaugh’s First Accuser, Matt Stevens, Sept. 26, 2018. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Republican leadership said Tuesday that it had retained Rachel Mitchell, an Arizona prosecutor specializing in sex crimes, to help question Christine Blasey Ford, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s first accuser.

The move allows Republicans to avoid having the 11 men who are part of the committee and in their party grill Dr. Blasey on Thursday about the alleged sexual assault in high school that she says a young Judge Kavanaugh carried out.

dianne feinsteinPolitico, Feinstein: Kavanaugh misled about grand jury secrecy in Vince Foster probe, Josh Gerstein, Sept. 26, 2018. The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee is accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of misleading the Senate about his handling of grand jury secrets while working for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr two decades ago.

Kavanaugh's nomination has run into trouble in the last two weeks over allegations of sexual assault by two women, but Democrats have also complained that he misled them during his Senate testimony on a number of issues, including his handling of warrantless wiretapping and detainee policy in the George W. Bush administration.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, right, told Politico that she has now identified another area in which she believes Kavanaugh was not truthful in communications with senators. She said that by directing officials to speak to reporters during the investigation of President Bill Clinton, Kavanaugh may have violated grand jury secrecy laws -- even though he told her and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) he never broke those rules.

"According to a memo from the National Archives, Brett Kavanaugh instructed Hickman Ewing, a colleague and deputy counsel in the Starr investigation, to ‘call [Chris] Ruddy’ about matters before a grand jury, which would be illegal to disclose," Feinstein said in a statement to Politico. "I asked Judge Kavanaugh in questions for the record whether he had shared ‘information learned through grand jury proceedings.’

His answer, which says that he acted ‘consistent with the law,’ conflicts with the official memo from Mr. Ewing. Disclosing grand jury information is against the law and would be troubling for any lawyer, especially one applying for a promotion to the highest court in the country.”