Kavanaugh Open Thread: Hearing Set for Monday, But Will Accuser Show Up?
Ford has not responded to the invitation.

Hopefully today is a little calmer than yesterday when it comes to Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh. We learned Monday evening that the Senate postponed his confirmation vote and scheduled a hearing on Monday with him and the woman who has accused him of sexual assault.
Except she hasn’t accepted the invitation yet.
Once again, if you come across anything, please leave it in the comment section.
Doubting Dianne?
Looks like Sen. Dianne Feinstein is unsure if Ford is truthful.
From colleague Connor Marley. Feinstein on Ford. Says Ford "is a woman that has been, I think, profoundly impacted, on this..I can't say that everything is truthful. I don't know."
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) September 18, 2018
Kavanaugh’s Classmate Won’t Testify
From Politico:
GOP senators are pressing ahead with a rare public hearing next week on Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh despite not yet getting her agreement to testify.
Another key witness in Ford’s decades-old allegation, Kavanaugh’s high school classmate Mark Judge, also declined to testify Tuesday. Judge, who Ford says was the third person in the room when Kavanaugh assaulted her, said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that “I have no more information to offer the committee and I do not wish to speak publicly regarding the incidents.”
Mark Judge thru counsel tells Sen Jud he has “no memory of this alleged (Blasey Ford) incident” and “I do not recall the party described in Dr Ford’s letter” and “I never saw Brett act in the manner Dr Ford describes”
— Trish Turner (@caphilltrish) September 18, 2018
Here’s the letter pic.twitter.com/YzhXwkbmSr
— Trish Turner (@caphilltrish) September 18, 2018
Trump Defends Kavanaugh
President Trump again defends Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh against sexual assault allegation, but says confirmation process will be delayed to look into it. “We want to give everybody a chance to say what they have to say” https://t.co/LXL6s6ZBIN pic.twitter.com/hTGTxRtO2e
— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 18, 2018
NEW: “I don’t think the FBI really should be involved because they don’t want to be involved … they say this is not really their thing,” Pres. Trump says about the sexual assault allegation against Brett Kavanaugh https://t.co/bT74vhwkXX pic.twitter.com/zR97vGa10T
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 18, 2018
Collins has Demands
I’m writing to the Chairman & RM of Judiciary Cmte respectfully recommending that at Monday’s hearing, counsel for Prof. Ford be allocated time to question Judge Kavanaugh & counsel for the Judge be granted equal time to question Prof. Ford, followed by questions from Senators.
— Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) September 18, 2018
Such an approach would provide more continuity, elicit the most information & allow an in-depth examination of the allegations.
— Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) September 18, 2018
Read my full letter to the Chairman & Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee here: https://t.co/WzOXlyPrAA pic.twitter.com/eALSEmPygN
— Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) September 18, 2018
Collins also confused as to why Ford hasn’t responded:
“That’s very puzzling to me. I have said from the beginning that these are very serious allegations and she deserves to be heard. She’s now being given an opportunity to come before the Senate Judiciary Committee and to answer questions and I really hope that she doesn’t pass up that opportunity,” Collins said to a group of reporters in the Dirksen Senate Office Building Tuesday morning.
Grassley Threatens to Cancel Monday Hearing
If the Senate does not hear from Christine Blasey Ford, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has threatened to cancel Monday’s hearing. From Fox News:
Grassley, R-Iowa, scheduled a hearing for Monday for Kavanaugh and accuser Christine Blasey Ford to answer questions from senators about the allegation. But Grassley said during a Tuesday radio interview that his office has reached out several times to Ford and her attorneys to discuss her allegation, but has heard nothing back.
“We have reached out to her in the last 36 hours three or four times by email and we have not heard from them, and it kind of raises the question, do they want to come to the public hearing or not?” Grassley said on The Hugh Hewitt Show.
Asked whether there would be a hearing if Ford did not agree to appear, Grassley suggested he couldn’t see a reason to hold one.
“What would be the purpose of the hearing if Dr. Ford doesn’t want to respond?” Grassley said.
White House Contacting Women in Kavanaugh’s Past
From CNN:
The plan, the officials said, will rely heavily on women who will attest to Kavanaugh’s good character — including from his teenage years, during which he is alleged to have sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford.
The White House has been contacting many of the 65 women who signed a letter in support of Kavanaugh that was released after an anonymous allegation of sexual assault surfaced — before Ford emerged this weekend to put a name and a face to her accusation — to see if they would be willing to publicly back him in the coming week. Many of those women, one official said, are prepared to publicly defend Kavanaugh.
Some of those women and other female surrogates will be out front this week attesting to his character. Already on Monday, women who worked with Kavanaugh in the administration of President George W. Bush began to release statements expressing their support for him as part of a campaign to defend the federal judge’s integrity using the hashtag #IStandWithBrett.
“I’ve known Judge Brett Kavanaugh for nearly 20 years,” wrote Sara Fagen, the former Bush White House political director. “I don’t believe he would ever harm any person, let alone assault a woman. These eleventh hour allegations as he was about to be confirmed to the Supreme Court reflect the sad state of American politics today. He’s a good man, a brilliant jurist, and he does not deserve to have his good name ruined because the base of the Democratic party doesn’t want a conservative on the Supreme Court.”
Hearing on Monday
Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford seemed eager to get in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to tell their stories. Fox News reported that Ford has not responded:
Much has been made of Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford’s invitation to testify before an open hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee next week — but it’s not set in stone yet she will actually show.
Fox News is told that the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday night reached out to Ford’s lawyers to invite her to Monday’s open hearing to discuss her allegation of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but she has not responded yet.
Ford, a California-based professor, revealed her identity over the weekend in a Washington Post report. She said that Kavanaugh, while in high school, pinned her down, tried to remove her bathing suit and put his hand over her mouth when she attempted to scream. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation.
Comments
She’s lying. Period.
Reasons To Question Veracity Of Kavanaughs Accuser
I think nominees should just refuse to show up for any interrogations. They can meet individual Senators at their request (making sure the session is taped).
There really is no need for a nominee to face questions. Either they are qualified or they’re not. The investigation done by the appropriate agency and any other documents and such that a particular Senator may request should be sufficient.
It’s an up or down vote. No maybes. The circuses must be canceled.
Apparently Flake has offered her the option of testifying in closed session if that makes her feel more comfortable.
She said – he said now will be they said- they said… Leaving a cloud over this all as Flake and the Dems wish. Flake has to do this to get a job after this year to keep him in the limelight as McCain’s channel.
That is unacceptable, to me. This is a person who wants to influence how my representatives vote on a Supreme Court nominee, and she wants to do so by launching accusations of bad conduct against him. I have a right to judge her credibility.
This is the most outrageous thing I have ever seen. What we have is a person who is making nebulous charges lacking any specificity, which allegedly occurred 30+ years ago [the accuser is not exactly sure when it happened or where], to which NO witnesses have been produced, not even any evidence that it occurred at all and people in positions of power are taking this seriously. Really? Do I have to list all of the people, many of whom were women, who made serious charges against others, only to have those charges exposed as being entirely fabricated [Tawana Brawly and the Duke Lacrosse Team leap to mind].
We have no idea what actual criminal act is being alleged. We have no accurate location for the incident. We have no accurate time of the alleged incident. We have no reliable identification of the people involved. There was no real time report of the alleged incident. In a sane world, you couldn’t charge, let alone convict Al Capone of any criminal act here. This should all be ignored, unless some conclusive evidence that this event is both real and involved the people claimed is produced.
All true enough.
But the real goal here isn’t a marginally legal investigation of an ancient crime which didn’t actually happen. It’s a display of just enough activity to jolly along a couple of prima donnas, especially Snowe (who is apparently still playing hard-to-get). Once that’s accomplished, the charade can be dropped.
Ridiculous though all this is, it’s not clear that there’s any other way forward. Trump, Kavenaugh, Grassley, and McConnell have to work with the Senate they have, not a Senate which is any good.
Whether the allegations are true or not, Ford knows that she will be lionized by Democrats and other leftists for the rest of her life, just like Anita Hill. Note that the media have avoided any discussions about whether Hill was telling the truth. One investigator wrote, “By any reasonable evidentiary standard, [Thomas] should be vindicated of Hill’s charges.” Undoubtedly the media will extend the same courtesy of not investigating to Ford.
See https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-case-against-anita-hill/
Note that Feinstein’s timing is perfect: Bring out the letter after the hearings, to postpone a vote. The Democrats used similarly perfect timing to try to torpedo Clarence Thomas. They used perfect timing to crucify Roy Moore, making allegations that couldn’t be investigated before the election, and they took over Sessions’ Senate seat. It’s time the Republicans started learning and using some of these dirty tricks.
I’m going to be the honest one here. I’m pretty damned sick of manufactured outrage. I don’t even care if this cockamamie story is true. If a teen guy got stinking drunk one night and groped a girl – so what? I don’t care. I was a teen in the late 70’s early 80’s. We all got drunk. We all got groped. None of us are the worse for wear and if we are, we’re working hard at it. Truth? We woke up with a hangover and said wow what a wild night that was and went back and did it again. To feign outrage over a non-event 35 years later is despicable.
It’s been pretty obvious that this isn’t so much about Kavanaugh, one of the cleanest nominees ever to be named (although they’d take his scalp if they can get it); it’s about each and every future Republican nominee to any job, no matter what. The clear message is that if you’ve ever done anything, no matter how trivial, from the cradle to you nomination, they’ll use it to get you – and if you haven’t done anything they can use, they’ll just make something up.
She looks a bit younger than 50 in that photo.
I’m sure our lawyers on the site will chime in on the law but if what I understand is correct then Ford’s lawyer knew that one, the FBI would never investigate such a case plus it is beyond any statute of limitations. Two, her lawyer is now saying it is not up to Ford to corroborate her story but the law and the Senate! Since no one knows the time, place or who was involved I doubt that there will be an investigation. Three, seeing this approach by Ford’s side leads me to think that she will not appear and then claim that the hostile atmosphere created by the Repubs make it too uncomfortable to testify. Four, by doing this she has not committed any fraud or broken any laws. She can walk away with some damage to Kavannaugh’s reputation but none to hers. If that leads to one Repub voting no she has done her work.
An allegation or accusation ≠ corroboration
An accusation ≠ evidence
An accusation ≠ a proof point or fact
An accusation = an opinion and in this case = motivated cognition
(1) If reasonable people who vote don’t recognize the pattern of character assassination that the ‘new Democrats’ have employed post Ted Kennedy, then all is lost and the center won’t hold.
(2) The only way for the center to hold, unfortunately, is for Conservatives to employ the same tactics that Democrats employ.
(3) For those who reject that strategy, know that you are bringing a butter knife to a gun fight, and the result will reflect past history:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer were confirmed by the lopsided margins of 96–3 and 87–9, respectively
(4) Democrats have become so anti-everything non-progressive that they apparently don’t understand that:
(A) Conservatives, who are not their Grandfathers, will follow the standards for Supreme Court confirmations Democrats have established;
(B) No competent, decent Judicial candidate will ever accept a nomination, much less be confirmed – so another Leftist Ruth Bader Ginsberg,or right-leaning John Roberts will never be a Justice;
(c) No politically active nominee, like Elena Kagan, who had never been a judge, will ever lend her experience as a Justice;
(d) We will be saddled with nebbishes who have never had a life; never interacted with their peers; never written an opinion;
And just think, the whole process worked for a century until Harry Reid decided to overturn the wisdom of history to gain an ephemeral win for Barack Obama’s judicial nominees.
The professor reports in an update on this post…
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/09/kavanaugh-accusers-couples-therapy-records-partially-leaked-to-wapo-may-hold-the-key/
…that Ford’s attorney has stated her client will not testify until after an FBI investigation.
Thus confirming it’s all a lie cooked up by a couple of leftist activists, with no doubt some Senate Democrats complicit in the lie, to derail Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
The alleged incident is so far beyond the statute of limitations that no law enforcement agency, even if the appropriate agency was the FBI, could investigate it. But the appropriate agency isn’t the FBI. The FBI has already stated that it won’t investigate as no one has alleged a federal crime. They don’t have jurisdiction over this sort of thing. At best this was a Hail Mary pass to coerce the FBI into wasting resources in a months long investigation, which would kill Kavanaugh’s nomination. But it isn’t even that as I’m sure the last thing Ford and her attorneys want is an investigation of any sort into this baseless claim. What they want is an excuse not to testify but to keep the lie alive in the court of public opinion.
These activists, as well as the Congressional Democrats, will scream bloody murder but it’s time to confirm Kavanaugh without delay. It’s a naked, partisan, and despicable dirty trick. By asking for the impossible they obviously wanted to do, with an assist from Feinstein, was to throw a grenade into the hearings in the hope of blowing it up.
I agree with your post, except for the “she won’t testify.”
That is what her lawyer said today, says now.
It won’t last. That is all part of the play, the script.
She will testify, I believe, and tell a tale that has been written for her – maybe even by her and some chums – to destroy a good man all because a POTUS she/they don’t like sits in the White House……
Beyond disgusting.
She won’t testify on Monday so she misses her chance to testify at all now that it’s clear that this is a vile smear campaign and a despicable delaying tactic. Grassley and the rest of the GOP Senators can’t reward this behavior. On Thursday at the latest Grassley should announce he’s cancelling what has become an entirely pointless hearing and instead scheduling the vote.
As it turns out Ford’s attorney Debra Katz is on the board of directors (she’s the vice chair) of the extremely left wing, Soros funded Project On Government Oversight or POGO. Recall when demanding an impossibly large and irrelevant document dump from the National Archives was the leftist delaying tactic duJour? POGO joined in the effort. If you care to read their dishonest letter the group sent to Grassley it’s on their site.
https://www.pogo.org/letter/2018/08/ngos-ask-senate-to-review-record-before-confirmation-hearing/
I can save you the trouble. Kavanaugh provided over 500,000 pages of documents. No SCOTUS nominee has ever provided anything close to that many documents. As Ted Cruz pointed out that’s more than the last five nominees combined. How did POGO refer to that in their letter? They called it “a narrow set of records.” And if you want to verify the fact that Ford’s lawyer is on the board, go to the “about” page, then to the board and staff link at the right side of the page, then click on board link. Her picture and name are there.
She’s also big Dem donor in her own right.
https://twitter.com/JacobAWohl/status/1041704582605205506
Her client is also a lefty activist, but she scrubbed her internet presence this month before going public by closing her social media sites. Still the internet is forever and traces of her anti-Trump activism remain.
This hit job was clearly planned for months.
“This hit job was clearly planned for months.”
Of course. The Marxist party plans well ahead. The pussy party doesn’t even recognize the attack.
Bill Cosby was a test run – the left wanted to see if one of the most beloved men could be taken down in this way. (They wanted him discredited because he was a pillar of the black community telling the kids to stop being victims and do what he did – work HARD and achieve your dreams. Can’t have that if you want to keep ’em down, on the plantation, voting D forevah.)
It worked. Beautifully.
No evidence. Thirty+ year old allegations. Settlements that implied guilt. More women come to make the accusations appear more credible. It is, after all the “seriousness of the charges” dontcha know.
Of course, Clarence Thomas came before; however, he was not world-beloved. He was also confirmed, so that attack was not 100% successful. Tweak the D playbook, make the changes to the plays and test it out again……..
Now, here we are.
It will not end unless and until the Republicans and sane people stand up and STAND AGAINST this defamation.
FBI investigated Blasey Ford’s Claim and Responded Tuesday: “It’s totally inappropriate for someone to demand we use law enforcement resources to investigate a 35-year-old allegation when she won’t go under oath and can’t remember key details including when or where it happened.”
also there’s rumor of Blasey Ford doing this because Candidate Romney put Kavanaugh on Romney’s SCotUS list
another rumor of writing a letter defaming Gorsuch
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-democrat-accusations-not-enough-evidence/
One of the best encapsulations of this travesty I’ve read.