Grassley’s Gloves are Off: Third Request for Withheld Evidence Mentions “Recently Uncovered Information”
Ford friend Leland Keyser reportedly felt pressured to change her statement
Late Thursday night, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Grassley sent yet another request for evidence (the third in writing that’s been made public) to Ford’s attorneys requesting Ford’s therapy notes (the ones she shared with The Washington Post but has refused to share with the committee in confidence) as well as her communications with the WaPo.
Sen. Grassley also cited “recently uncovered information,” which led him to request communication with Sen. Feinstein and her staff, and Sen. Hirono and her staff. Further, Grassley requested communication with “witnesses identified by Dr. Ford”, Leland Keyser, Mark Judge, Patrick “PJ” Smyth, Debbie Ramirez, Julie Swetnick, and their representatives be provided to the committee.
BREAKING: New SenGrassley letter to Ford legal team regarding dispute over turning over evidence. pic.twitter.com/5NRnaM6ozA
— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) October 5, 2018
The last two paragraphs, in particular, mince no words. Sen. Grassley suggests that Dr. Ford’s (and her team’s) repeated refusal to turn over what she claims is evidence of her allegations means that “the withheld evidence does not support Dr. Ford’s allegations in quite the way,” she claims.
Shortly after Sen. Grassley’s letter was made public, the Wall Street Journal reported that Leland Keyser, a friend of Dr. Fords, “felt pressured by Dr. Ford’s allies to revisit her initial statement that she knew nothing about an alleged sexual assault by a teenage Brett Kavanaugh, which she later updated to say that she believed but couldn’t corroborate Dr. Ford’s account, according to people familiar with the matter.”
From the WSJ:
On Thursday, a day after sending to the White House the report on its investigation into the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, the FBI sent the White House and Senate an additional package of information that included text messages from Ms. McLean to Ms. Keyser, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Ms. McLean’s lawyer, David Laufman, said in a statement: “Any notion or claim that Ms. McLean pressured Leland Keyser to alter Ms. Keyser’s account of what she recalled concerning the alleged incident between Dr. Ford and Brett Kavanaugh is absolutely false.”
Ms. Keyser’s lawyer on Sept. 23 said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that she had no recollection of attending a party with Judge Kavanaugh, whom she said she didn’t know. That same day, however, she told the Washington Post that she believed Dr. Ford. On Sept. 29, two days after Dr. Ford and the judge testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms. Keyser’s attorney sent a letter to the panel saying his client wasn’t refuting Dr. Ford’s account and that she believed it but couldn’t corroborate it.
A person close to the former classmates said it was her understanding that mutual friends of Dr. Ford and Ms. Keyser, including Ms. McLean, had contacted Ms. Keyser after her initial statement to warn her that her statement was being used by Republicans to rebut the allegation against Judge Kavanaugh. The friends told Ms. Keyser that if she had intended to say she didn’t remember the party—not that it had never happened—that she should clarify her statement, the person said, adding that the friends hadn’t “pressured” Ms. Keyser.
Monica McLean, a former FBI agent, and by some accounts, Dr. Ford’s “lifelong best friend” is the individual whom Ford allegedly coached prior to taking a polygraph test. During her testimony before the Judiciary Committee, Ford claimed she’d never “given tips or advice to somebody who was looking to take a polygraph test.”
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Comments
This is where we could use some actual legal analysis. How serious is this?
I am thinking “witness tampering” might be a start…but I am a scientist and not a lawyer.
The real problem is how this has been handled by everyone. In a serious investigation, the potential witness talks only to the investigators, who then keep their findings under wraps until the actual hearing, or whatever other process is involved. That way the potential witness will say to friends “I was told not to discuss my testimony publicly” and that is the end of it, until it’s over.
In THIS case, everyone has been leaking everything to the press the minute after it’s said, so there is NO privacy and the entire world is looking at the investigators notes. That is not right, and it is not proper, and it screws the entire process up right from the start (and in my opinion, completely invalidates it to the point that no serious judgment is possible)
The problems of pressure on witnesses, as well as the trolling for more character assasination “witnesses”, are the result of the way the entire process has been corrupted from the start, and is what has turned this process into a bus crash between 2 buses full of clowns squirting gasoline out of the fake flowers they’re wearing. It’s impossible to point at any one person who’s violating a law when every single person involved (with the exception of Kavanaugh himself) has participated in turning this into a complete and total farce.
I no longer believe there should be open confirmation hearings for posts like this. I also no longer believe the US Senate is a functional body of government. Might as well appoint Incitatus to be President Pro Tem of the Senate and be done with it.
I really like your post, Tom, especially the part about keeping future hearings out of the public eye. In other blog postings I’ve read yesterday & today, people are screaming because the confidential, raw data FBI reports on Judge Kavanaugh should be made public “because we have a right to see what’s in them and decide for ourselves”.
Uh, no you don’t. I hated to break this to people, but this ain’t “Dancing With the Stars”. They don’t get a vote whether to confirm or not. There’s no reason anyone but a Senator needs to see confidential FBI reports containing sensitive information about private citizens. We don’t get to vote on the confirmation. It’s none of our business.
Whaaa? I’m nOt disagreeing that some things need to be kept out of the public eye, but THIS IS OUR business. This is PURELY political and has absolutely nothing to do with justice on a 30+ year old sex assault, if it even happened.
The Democrats are the ones who called for this witch trial, complete with the modern day equivalent of spectral evidence and demands the witch be burned with no evidence other than that of girls who are being manipulated by those in power using a carefully crafted and well thought hysteria for our time.
Their purpose is SOLELY political. We have EVERY right to watch the process of how our lawmakers and law enforcers knowingly broke the laws, that they themselves are responsible for passing. We all NEED to see it.
So yes, I feel bad for Christine Ford, mostly because this never would have happened if her handlers and “beach friends” were not cunning members of a powerful group using the powers of government and the likes of FUSION GPS to manufacture, quite frankly, the most clumsy of all smears and then use the media to drag it across the finish line. Their disregard for FORD is shameless. It’s unbelievable what they are doing!
So, yes protect those on the fringes who have personal details to hide that should, for their sake, be kept personal. But anything and everything relating to this orchestrated witch-hunt and attempted political crucifixion deserve to be exposed for all citizens to see.
I know how this play ends:
GOP: “Not pressing charges blah decline to investigate blah blah… time to come together and heal blah let bygones be bygones blah blah …would you like to be with our wives?”
The wild card is the doxxing of senators and threats against their children. There will never be a better time to grow a set.
from what I read yesterday, that kid has been charged.
This is the pressure point to roll this up. This guy is facing up to 20 years and when you’re in your late 20s that’s a lot of your life to lose.
I saw a picture of him somewhere yesterday. He looks EXACTLY like “pajama boy” from the early Obamacare ads. All he needs are some flannel PJ’s and a mug of hot coca to complete the image.
Yes it ends just like Grassley’s demands for info from the DOJ – silence – Grassley bluffs then gives up.
When does “request” turn into “subpoena”?
A week from never.
If I understand the committee rules correctly, the request becomes a subpoena when they get at least one Democrat on the committee to agree. So a bit after the pigs are flying over Hell’s ski slopes.
However, if the FBI were to investigate…
It’s just a committee vote.
I’m not so sure this will be brushed aside. The protests will continue, the hatred will be ratcheted up by the leftists and Soros’ funded Community agitators. The left has lost their minds over their hatred for how well Trump is doing in dismantling Obama’s achievements, and in how well things have turned around under him. They can’t have that because it means their ways and means don’t work.
Kavanaugh’s appointment fight isn’t about him, he is just being used as a tool against Trump and Republicans. It is about the left losing some control over the SCOTUS, which is how they pushed through their agenda in cases where laws were questionably overturned. The sad thing is, Kavanaugh isn’t a hard conservative minded judge. He is pretty moderate. He would likely move the court slightly more right and be more reliable to judging on the Constitutional basis than the left wing of the court has. The left lost their swing justice who they were able to manipulate too often.
This allegation needs to be investigated. If Kavanaugh is guilty of doing as Ford claimed he should be removed, but if it is found that Ford manipulated things, made up false witness against Kavanaugh, she needs to be prosecuted along with anyone else in her cabal who engineered this, because it will always be a wedge against Kavanaugh, and the left will continue to use smears like this, they will just refine them.
Feinstein needs to be brought up on ethics charges, and any further discipline brought against her for how she handled this whole thing. It was a political hit maneuver. The left needs to be punched in the mouth for their actions on this. It is the only way to curtail this despicable action from being used again, as they have for a long time. Even if Kavanaugh is confirmed, it won’t stop the leftists from their actions. A defeat is tough on them, but they don’t give up.
I hope the Republicans finally are waking up to who and what the Democrats are. They are not friends. They are not interested with working together. They never have been, but maybe this will help wake up the Republicans to their opponents true colors. Trump seems to have helped Graham grow a set, he demonstrated how to defeat the leftist attacks or at least blunt them. And shows that you never, ever, give in or give up.
The date of this letter, October 4, after the decision to call for the Friday procedural vote, tells me that Ford needs some pretty good criminal defense lawyers in her immediate future.
I’m wondering what percentage of the left of center Progressives believe in implementing their agenda “by any means necessary”?
90%
That low?!
Ford’s treatment at the hands of her overlords is tragic, despite obviously predictable. They’re done with her now, and left on her own to deal with the fallout. I doubt the Republicans will pursue her with much zeal. Her life is destroyed enough. She can spend the GoFundMe proceeds on more counseling. Even though I don’t know him, I pity her husband. He probably didn’t count on this fairy tale ending.
Feinstein and Hirono deserve to be hounded relentlessly and made to own up to their role in this ordeal.
Ford is no innocent of this. If she was a tool of the Democrats, whe was a willing tool.
Absolutely she was a willing tool!
I agree that she’s not innocent, but she was used, admittedly with her cooperation. Going after her would be a major blunder by the GOP. She’s a martyr to the left already. Prosecuting her would only validate their rhetoric. There will always be a ready supply of willing zealots to be exploited by the party bosses. This will only get worse and worse unless we deal with the bosses.
That’s why Feinstein and Hirono should be made to answer for their role. Imagine the nuclear war when RBG retires. This will look like a walk in the park compared to what evil antics the Dems will pull then. Discouraging legislators from contributing will help, although it won’t end it.
Can the Senate at large be held legally responsible for the conduct of its members? If Grassley follows the normal course of comity, there is little recourse for the rest of us.
Last I heard, subornation of perjury is illegal, even for FBI agents.
Leland Keyser’s claim to not remember Ford’s excellent party, and yet to still believe Ford’s account of that party, is absolutely not believable. According to Ford, there were four boys there (and two were falling-down drunk when she left), plus Keyser and Ford. Hence, supposedly four boys and only two girls. That in itself would seem to be at least somewhat memorable on the girls’ part. For Ford to then abruptly depart (with no explanation), leaving Keyser the ONLY girl remaining at the party to deal with four (at least two drunken) boys, would be a QUITE memorable event for Keyser, who at the time would have been 15 years old.
Not only that, but Keyser is presented as having been one of Ford’s very best friends at the time. And her only female friend supposedly in attendance with her at the party. What are the odds of Keyser NOT afterwards hunting down Ford at school, or simply calling her on the phone, and asking her something like, “Hey Christine, why’d you leave the party so early? You left me alone with four guys.”?
This alone (Keyser’s almost-certain attempt to ask Ford why she left the party early) would have made the party memorable for Keyser. And, once she asked Ford, then Ford could have responded in essentially only one of four ways: Either tell Keyser what (supposedly) happened, or say she doesn’t want to talk about it, or ignore her question, or lie and make up some story. In the first case, the party would then be memorable for Keyser (and Ford would now be lying about never telling anyone about the supposed incident until 2012). In the second case, the party would be memorable for Keyser, because there would have been the oddity of Ford not wanting to explain her leaving early (plus the ensuing unsolved mystery of why she left early). In the third case, the party would have been memorable for Keyser, because for no apparent reason her good friend, Ford, suddenly ignored her whenever she would ask Ford about why she left the party early. In the fourth case, the “memorableness” of the party for Keyser would perhaps depend upon what story Ford could have made up — but since there were no cellphones at the time, and it’s not likely Ford’s ride was waiting outside the entire time, Ford’s story would have had to have involved calling for a ride, then waiting to be picked up at the party house; but Ford says she ran immediately outside, then somehow, perhaps magically, eventually arrived home. Ford now implies her home was not really within (reasonable) walking distance of the party house, though originally her story implied that it likely was. In any event, in the fourth case, Keyser would have wondered why Ford didn’t inform her she was leaving while she would have been waiting for a ride. And this would also have made the party memorable for Keyser (the unusual event of Ford departing early, leaving Keyser alone with four boys, and the mystery of why Ford would not have informed her she was leaving early, while Ford waited for her ride).
Fascinating analysis (I’m sincere). The simplest explanation is that the party never actually occurred.
Personally, I believe that if Ford was indeed molested in her youth as she claims, it was by an adult male whom she knew (like what happened to Connie Chung), and her attacker drove her home afterwards.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dear-christine-blasey-ford-i-too-was-sexually-assaulted–and-its-seared-into-my-memory-forever/2018/10/03/2449ed3c-c68a-11e8-9b1c-a90f1daae309_story.html
A comment on a different LI post mentioned a woman publicly brow-beating Keyser to “save Ford” like she couldn’t save her dead former boyfriend (pool accident), or something like that. I could only believe “saving” Ford, in the context of ‘you know where this happened, you know who was there’… well, if she was never at such a party, and perhaps neither was Ford, these calls are kind of creepy, in hindsight.
Apparently, when people wanted the FBI to interview her, they wanted to interrogate her to the point that she’d “admit” to being there, whether it required making the incident up or not.
How many divisions does Grassley have to support any subpoena?
For me it just rings hollow. Congress is a shell and these committee investigations Noh play that only serves to allow the members to posture and pontificate while accomplishing nothing.
Voter ads and talking points.
The irony is, with the FBI involved, Congress is in its natural role: a sideshow. Manipulating a witness the Ford camp knew the FBI was going to interview, in part because of the Ford team’s request, in part because of the Senate’s request (i.e. the official one), need not be a Senate issue at all, only a DoJ one.
At present? Perhaps not. But I wonder what the statute of limitations is, if the DoJ has a change in management.
Sessions will get to it. Right now he is playing 9 pins and drinking with some Old guys and he feels very slee