Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has been one of the most aggressive interrogators of Brett Kavanaugh.
That interrogation focused on Kavanaugh’s high school yearbook entries, earning Whitehouse national mockery over a fart joke entry.
Whitehouse also announced a theory about a July 1, 1982 party, based on Kavanaugh’s contemporaneous calendar, which has been soundly debunked.
John McCormack at The Weekly Standard explains:
The potential significance of this event is that it is the only party or gathering listed on Kavanaugh’s calendar at which both Mark Judge and P.J. Smyth were listed as present, and Judge and Smyth are two people alleged by Ford to have been in attendance at the gathering where she was allegedly assaulted.But the house where this gathering took place (according to Kavanaugh’s calendar) does not appear to match the description offered by Ford in her recollection of events, and there are other reasons to be skeptical of the theory put forward by Senator Whitehouse and several left-leaning journalists….Ford recalled that the home where the alleged attack occurred was, according to the Washington Post, “not far from the country club” in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where she had likely spent the day swimming prior to the alleged attack.Tom Kane, one of the Kavanaugh friends who was listed in attendance, told CNN’s New Day on Friday that Tim Gaudette’s house was in Rockville, Maryland, 11 miles away from the country club.“I saw it published today that someone’s floating the notion that there was something on July 1 at Tim Gaudette’s house,” Kane told CNN. “Tim Gaudette lived in Rockville. It’s 11 miles away from Columbia Country Club. And it wasn’t a single-family home. It was a townhouse.”
The publicity has stoked interest in Whitehouse’s Republican challenger, Robert Flanders. (See my write up of the race here, RI Senate Race could be the big surprise of 2018). In an email, Flanders’ campaign manager Richard Kirby says donations and calls are flooding in from around the country:
The Campaign has seen a big increase in not only contributions at various levels from all over the country, but also a never ending parade of telephone calls and emails condemning Sheldon Whitehouse for his extreme partisanship. Not to mention his rude condescending manner to Judge Kavanaugh. Contributions have been coming in from places such as Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Nebraska even liberal California!
That national interest may be about to grow.
A Rhode Islander made an accusation that gained media attention alleging Kavanaugh participated in a sexual attack on a boat in Rhode Island. The accusation was made to Whitehouse’s office in the morning of September 24, 2018. The accusation quickly was in the media feeding the political frenzy.
The accuser, after the story became public and completely implausible, then recanted that night.
But how did the story get so quickly into the media? We may have the answer, and it points to Whitehouse.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has referred the matter to the Department of Justice and FBI for investigation and possible prosecution, because the accuser allegedly provided false information to the Committed during its investigation. (h/t Byron York Twitter) The cover letter from Chuck Grassley and supporting materials are available at the Committee website.
In those materials was the letter Whitehouse sent to the Committee the same day the accuser contact Whithouse’s office. In that letter, Whitehouse states:
“This morning, a constituent contacted my office to report another allegation of sexual misconduct by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, nominee to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. At the constituent’s request, I provided the constituent with the contact information of a reporter who might investigate the allegation. I have also alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
I reached out to Whitehouse’s office for comment as to which reporter Whitehouse referred the accuser, but as of this writing have received no response.
We don’t know what the accuser did with that information, and whether Whitehouse’s referral was the spark that lit the media fuse that morning. Nonetheless, this raises serious questions as to the motivation of Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.
Why refer the accuser to a reporter unless Whitehouse wanted to feed the media firestorm against Kavanaugh? And why do that prior to notifying the FBI and Judiciary Committee, thereby potentially damaging their ability to investigate?
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