Senators Reach Deal For Kavanaugh Sex Claim Probe

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Oct. 1

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.

What’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.

Sept. 30

New York Times, Details of F.B.I.’s Kavanaugh Inquiry Show Its Restricted Range, Michael D. Shear, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Maggie Haberman and Michael S. SchmidtSept. 30, 2018 (print edition). The F.B.I. will interview four witnesses about sexual assault claims against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as part of a background check, not a full-fledged criminal investigation. The White House will decide the breadth of the inquiry and can order further investigation based on the findings from the four interviews.

Washington Post, Kellyanne Conway: ‘I’m a victim of sexual assault,’ Alex Horton​, During an appearance on CNN, Sept. 30, 2018. The White House adviser suggested conservatives have become targets for political score settling.

Sept. 29

New York Times, Opinion: Thank You, Jeff Flake. Maybe America Can Now Learn the Truth. Editorial Board, Sept. 29, 2018 (print edition). An attack of conscience by one Republican senator, Jeff Flake of Arizona (shown at right), quickly reinforced by some wavering colleagues, compelled the Senate leadership and the White House to accede to common sense by commissioning an F.B.I. inquiry into the allegations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.

Washington Post, New Kavanaugh inquiry draws FBI into partisan tug of war, Matt Zapotosky, Sept. 29, 2018 (print edition). The FBI has grown accustomed to its work being viewed through sharply partisan lenses. But President Trump’s order for a “supplemental investigation” of Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh presents challenges.

Palmer Report, Analysis: Donald Trump begins backing down after he’s caught trying to rig FBI investigation into Brett Kavanaugh, Bill Palmer, right, Sept. 29, 2018. Earlier this evening, multiple major news outlets reported that Donald Trump had been caught trying to secretly place severe and absurd restrictions on the FBI investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, including forbidding the FBI from investigating the claims made by Julie Swetnick. Trump could only have gotten away with this if no one found out until it was too late to matter.

Now that he’s been caught, predictably, he’s already begun backing down.

After the news broke, Trump’s Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah released a statement insisting that the FBI was free to investigate any and all aspects of the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh. Because Trump and his White House have publicly staked themselves to this, Trump is not going to be able to keep the investigation limited.

In fact, because one of Trump’s official spokespeople just publicly told the FBI that it’s free to interview Swetnick, for all we know, the FBI may have taken this as an excuse to call Swetnick right now.

NBC News, White House limits scope of the FBI's investigation into the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, Ken Dilanian, Geoff Bennett, Kristen Welker, Frank Thorp V, Hallie Jackson and Leigh Ann Caldwell, Sept. 29, 2018. The FBI has not been permitted to investigate the claims of Julie Swetnick, a White House official confirmed to NBC News. The White House is limiting the scope of the FBI’s investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, multiple people briefed on the matter told NBC News.

While the FBI will examine the allegations of Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez, the bureau has not been permitted to investigate the claims of Julie Swetnick, below at right, who has accused Kavanaugh of engaging in sexual misconduct at parties while he was a student at Georgetown Preparatory School in the 1980s, those people familiar with the investigation told NBC News. A White House official confirmed that Swetnick's claims will not be pursued as part of the reopened background investigation into Kavanaugh.

Ford said in Senate testimony Thursday that she was "100 percent" certain that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school. Ramirez alleged that he exposed himself to her when there were students at Yale. Kavanaugh has staunchly denied allegations from Ford, Ramirez, below at left, and Swetnick.

Instead of investigating Swetnick's claims, the White House counsel’s office has given the FBI a list of witnesses they are permitted to interview, according to several people who discussed the parameters on the condition of anonymity. They characterized the White House instructions as a significant constraint on the FBI investigation and caution that such a limited scope, while not unusual in normal circumstances, may make it difficult to pursue additional leads in a case in which a Supreme Court nominee has been accused of sexual assault.

President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the FBI has "free reign" in the investigation. "They’re going to do whatever they have to do," he said. "Whatever it is they do, they’ll be doing — things that we never even thought of. And hopefully at the conclusion everything will be fine."

Twitter, Swetnick Lawyer Avenatti Responds To Trump Muzzle On FBI, Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti), Sept. 29, 2018. "If true, this is outrageous. Why are Trump and his cronies in the Senate trying to prevent the American people from learning the truth? Why do they insist on muzzling women with information submitted under penalty of perjury? Why Ramirez but not my client?"

Washington Post, Details in Kavanaugh’s 1982 calendar entry could be scrutinized in FBI probe, Michael Kranish, Joe Heim and Emma Brown, Sept. 29, 2018 (print edition).  Democrats have seized on the scrawled notes as possible evidence that could support Christine Blasey Ford’s charge that the Supreme Court nominee sexually assaulted her.

Palmer Report, Analysis: FBI is already ripping into Brett Kavanaugh’s life tonight, Bill Palmer, right, Sept. 29, 2018. How much can the FBI accomplish in the week it’s been given to investigate the accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh? Let’s just say that the bureau is hitting the ground running, with a vengeance. Not only is the FBI investigating multiple sexual assault accusations, it’s been seeking to conduct key interviews as soon as tonight.

The FBI reached out to one of Kavanaugh’s sexual assault accusers asking if she could do an interview as “as early as tonight,” according to a startling new report from the Los Angeles Times. This is important for two reasons. First, it confirms what Mitch McConnell’s office stated earlier this evening, which is that the FBI has been given the authority to investigate all the accusations, and not just those made by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.

Second, it demonstrates just how quickly the FBI is working on this. The sooner it can interview Kavanaugh’s various accusers, the sooner it can use their responses to zero in on which other potential witnesses and physical evidence to pursue. The FBI already has a leg-up even before these interviews, because Ford just finished giving detailed public testimony, while Ramirez and Swetnick have also gone public in detail. All of this can be – and surely already is being – used to help guide the investigation even before the accuser interviews can be conducted.

Washington Post, American Bar Association had concerns in 2006 about Kavanaugh, Avi Selk, Sept. 29, 2018 (print edition). The ABA flagged concerns of possible bias just before the Senate made Brett M. Kavanaugh a federal judge.

Washington Post, An elevator confrontation, a meeting in a phone booth: Sen. Flake’s Friday drama, Elise Viebeck, Sean Sullivan and Paul Kane, The deal to delay a vote on President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee was made behind closed doors — by two senators crammed into an old-fashioned phone booth built for one. The deal to delay a final vote on President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee was made behind closed doors Friday — by two senators crammed into a battered, old-fashioned phone booth built for one. 

Washington Post, ‘I was demanding a connection’: Ana Maria Archila reflects on confronting Jeff Flake over Kavanaugh nomination, Elise Viebeck, Sept. 29, 2018 (print edition).  Ana Maria Archila had never told her father that she was sexually abused as a child. But after she confronted a U.S. senator about President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee and the video started going viral, she thought it was time to share her story.

“I always carried the fear that my parents would feel that they had failed in taking care of me if I told them,” Archila (co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy in New York) said Friday night in a phone interview with The Washington Post.

The encounter on Friday morning between Archila, a second woman and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) has already become an iconic moment in the debate over Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. With a CNN camera behind them broadcasting live, Archila and Maria Gallagher blocked the doors of an elevator for about five minutes in an effort to confront Flake about his just-announced support for Kavanaugh, who is facing several allegations of sexual misconduct.

Sept. 28

Roll 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.

Palmer Report, Analysis: Confirmed: FBI is now allowed to criminally pursue Brett Kavanaugh for lying to the Senate, Bill Palmer, right, Sept. 28, 2018. We’re already learning that the FBI is now allowed to pursue criminal charges against Kavanaugh if it’s determined that he lied under oath to the Senate.

Halfway through a lengthy new exposé from the Washington Post, we find this sentence regarding the the FBI investigation in question: “If investigators uncover evidence that Kavanaugh lied to lawmakers during hearings or on his background-check forms, that could spark a criminal investigation in which law enforcement could use the full extent of its legal powers.”

This confirms Palmer Report’s earlier premise that once the FBI begins an investigation like this, there really are no limits to the FBI’s ability to follow the evidence to any and all federal crimes. By our count, Kavanaugh [shown in a Palmer Report graphic] appeared to commit at least four separate provable instances of perjury during his televised Senate testimony, even before the sexual assault accusations surfaced. He lied extensively about the circumstances under which he received and forwarded stolen emails, and among other issues.

This may help explain why Senate Democrats uniformly pushed so hard for an FBI investigation. Even if the FBI can’t prove within the next seven days that Brett Kavanaugh tried to rape Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, it can quickly and easily prove that he committed felony perjury.

New York Times, A Bitter Nominee, Questions of Neutrality, and a Damaged Supreme Court, Adam Liptak, right, 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.

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

Washington 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, 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.

New 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.”

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.

Washington 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, ‘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.”

Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump’s pal Alan Dershowitz shockingly tries to put the brakes on Brett Kavanaugh nomination, Bill Palmer, right, Sept. 28, 2018. After Dr. Christine Blasey Ford gave credible and compelling testimony yesterday alleging that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh tried to rape her, and Kavanaugh responded by having a mental breakdown during his own subsequent testimony, various entities called for a halt to the nomination so an FBI investigation could be conducted.

Not surprisingly, the American Bar Association was among them. Shockingly, so was Donald Trump’s pal Alan Dershowitz.

Not long before midnight eastern time, it was widely reported that the ABA had sent a letter to Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein, arguing that the FBI must step in and help determine whether Kavanaugh or Ford is telling the truth. This is a major development, but perhaps not surprising.

On the one hand, with the Brett Kavanaugh nomination now rapidly shaping up as a stain on American history, it’s possible that Alan Dershowitz may simply be trying to avoid taking one more reputational hit as he continues to turn into more of a Trump shill.

On the other hand, maybe Dershowitz really is trying to talk Trump into moving on from Kavanaugh, for fear that pushing any further forward could backfire.

Democrats Threatened With Senate Reprisals

Roll 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.”

CNN, Democrats seize on circumstantial July 1 theory for Kavanaugh and Ford, Zach Wolf, Sept. 28, 2018. CNN Sen. Jeff Flake demanded a potentially week-long pause on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh Friday so the FBI could do a limited investigation in to the sexual assault allegation levied against him by Christine Blasey Ford in searing testimony Thursday.

Vox, Every time Ford and Kavanaugh dodged a question, in one chart, Alvin Chang, Sept. 28, 2018. There was a striking difference in style — and substance. There were several noticeable differences between the Senate testimony of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the woman accusing him of sexual assault, Christine Blasey Ford.

The most obvious was the tone each took. Ford was polite and quiet in recounting her accusation against Kavanaugh; he was angry and loud in his denials of the allegations against him.

Beyond the style of their testimonies, there was a striking difference in the content of their words. Both Ford and Kavanaugh fielded questions from senators and the prosecutor hired by Republicans, Rachel Mitchell.

Washington 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.”

Sept. 27

Supreme Court Battle

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

Roll Call, Jeff Flake Straddling the Fence on Kavanaugh Ahead of Friday Vote, Niels Lesniewski, Sept. 27, 2018. Arizona Republican isn’t committing to supporting Supreme Court nominee.

Sen. Jeff Flake, seen as a key swing vote who could either put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court or kill his chances, is not committing to voting for the nominee at a Friday morning Judiciary Committee markup.

The Arizona Republican sounded very conflicted Thursday evening following a meeting of the Senate Republican Conference after the Judiciary panel spent nearly nine hours Thursday hearing from Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexually assaulting her at a party decades ago when they were both in high school.

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.”

Washington Post, 3 takeaways from the Kavanaugh hearing so far, Amber Phillips​, Sept. 27, 2018. 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 Republicans2. Meanwhile, Ford came across as credible, emotional and sympathetic3. Republicans' decision to hand their questions over to a female prosecutor is seeming questionable.

New York Times, Kavanaugh Denies Sexual Assault Charges and Attacks Democrats in Scathing Testimony, Staff report, Sept. 27, 2018. 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.”

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, 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.

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.

Washington 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."