Kavanaugh on post-hearing hit: “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation”
A pattern of unhinged Democrat Senators and their alt-left supporters trying to delegitimize Kavanaugh: “I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”
We finally know what the allegation is against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh that was the subject of Sen. Dianne Feinstein forwarding a secret letter to the FBI.
The FBI promptly announced that there would be no criminal investigation and that the letter had been made part of Kavanaugh’s background check file.
There has been a lot of media speculation as to what the allegation was. Feinstein who had the letter since July, would not tell anyone, not even her Democratic colleagues much less Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee. What was known was that it concerned Kavanaugh’s time in high school.
Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer of The New Yorker appear to have verified that the accusation was that Kavanaugh and another male high school student held a girl down, and that Kavanaugh tried “to force himself on her” (from the article, not a quote from the letter).
Kavanaugh unequivocally denies that it happened and the other male says he has no recollection of it happening.
From The New Yorker:
The woman, who has asked not to be identified, first approached Democratic lawmakers in July, shortly after Trump nominated Kavanaugh. The allegation dates back to the early nineteen-eighties, when Kavanaugh was a high-school student at Georgetown Preparatory School, in Bethesda, Maryland, and the woman attended a nearby high school. In the letter, the woman alleged that, during an encounter at a party, Kavanaugh held her down, and that he attempted to force himself on her. She claimed in the letter that Kavanaugh and a classmate of his, both of whom had been drinking, turned up music that was playing in the room to conceal the sound of her protests, and that Kavanaugh covered her mouth with his hand. She was able to free herself. Although the alleged incident took place decades ago and the three individuals involved were minors, the woman said that the memory had been a source of ongoing distress for her, and that she had sought psychological treatment as a result.
In a statement, Kavanaugh said, “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”
Kavanaugh’s classmate said of the woman’s allegation, “I have no recollection of that.”
The woman declined a request for an interview.
If Feinstein took the 30+ year old allegation seriously when the letter was received in July, why not act on it then? Why not make it a subject of questioning of Kavanaugh at the hearing? The answers are self-obvious.
Instead, the fact of Feinstein sending the letter to the FBI leaked to The Intercept and Buzzfeed. That enabled a furious news cycle of speculation and demands to delay the confirmation vote. As of this writing, the actual letter has not been released, so we are still left to speculate and to rely on reporters like Ronan Farrow.
The New Yorker addresses Feinstein’s mishandling:
Feinstein’s decision to handle the matter in her own office, without notifying other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, stirred concern among her Democratic colleagues. For several days, Feinstein declined requests from other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee to share the woman’s letter and other relevant communications. A source familiar with the committee’s activities said that Feinstein’s staff initially conveyed to other Democratic members’ offices that the incident was too distant in the past to merit public discussion, and that Feinstein had “taken care of it.” On Wednesday, after media inquiries to the Democratic members multiplied, and concern among congressional colleagues increased, Feinstein agreed to brief the other Democrats on the committee, with no staff present….
Sources familiar with Feinstein’s decision suggested that she was acting out of concern for the privacy of the accuser, knowing that the woman would be subject to fierce partisan attacks if she came forward. Feinstein also acted out of a sense that Democrats would be better off focussing on legal, rather than personal, issues in their questioning of Kavanaugh. Sources who worked for other members of the Judiciary Committee said that they respected the need to protect the woman’s privacy, but that they didn’t understand why Feinstein had resisted answering legitimate questions about the allegation. “We couldn’t understand what their rationale is for not briefing members on this. This is all very weird,” one of the congressional sources said. Another added, “She’s had the letter since late July. And we all just found out about it.”
Were Feinstein’s actions and those of the people spreading rumors “evil” as some have asserted?
I think so. Feinstein is in a tough reelection fight against more leftist fellow Democrat Kevin de Leon. In California’s “jungle” primary system, the two top vote getters regardless of party go to the general election. Feinstein would have been sunk had she done nothing about the accusation, but she knew is was an ancient and likely questionable claim. So much so that she couldn’t find the justification for raising it formally at the committee and hearings. Instead, she sends it after the hearings to the FBI and *someone* makes sure the referral leaks.
This also was done immediately after the hearings, after the point that Kavanaugh had the opportunity on live television before a huge national audience to deny the accusations in person. Instead, we’re left with a flood of headlines about his alleged “sexual misconduct” and a denial that is a footnote.
This was not about getting to the truth.
Email a smart conservative lawyer (who didn’t know about the letter) sent me on September 5. pic.twitter.com/TMWf9uzzEV
— John McCormack (@McCormackJohn) September 14, 2018
It’s part of a pattern of unhinged Democrat Senators and their alt-left supporters trying to delegitimize Kavanaugh and a coming conservative Supreme Court.
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Comments
what’s that smell???
/snif
/snif
did someone just fertilize the rose bushes?
So let me get this straight. In the middle of a party, with all these people around, Kavanaugh pulled a woman to the ground and tried to rape her.
Riiiiight.
In other articles, it has been reported that the woman claims that Kavanaugh and his friend briefly locked her in a room, and that’s where this incident occurred.
But there are still lots of unanswered questions. Had she ever met Kavanaugh before this party? They went to different schools, so how much (if any) prior contact had she had with him so that she was able to recognize him? Is she even sure her attacker (if there was one) was actually Kavanaugh, and not some other teen? How well lit was the party, and the room? How did her attacker try to “force himself” on her, since they were both presumably fully dressed at the party? Did he tear off her clothing? If so, why doesn’t the other guy in the room remember that (seems like that would stand out in someone’s memory). She says she was able to get away from her attacker, but she doesn’t say how. Kavanaugh was a football player at the time, so presumably strong enough to hold onto a teenage girl if he wanted to. Was she freakishly strong, or did her attacker simply let her go when she resisted? Was she injured in any way other than psychologically? And if she was so psychologically traumatized by the attack, why didn’t she make a contemporaneous report of the attack to the parents or the school or the cops? Why did she wait 36 years to accuse Kavanaugh? And most importantly, why is she making this accusation anonymously, and refusing to come forward and be questioned about it?
Even if we were to accept everything she reportedly says as true (and there are obviously many good reasons not to), it’s still a pretty flimsy complaint. At a drunken teenage party nearly 40 years ago, a male teen tried to make sexual contact with a female teen and got pushed away. Big friggin’ deal.
Yes, you hit upon some very strange things. How was a woman able to get away from two men?
How sure can she be that this was Kavanaugh? In Steven Avery’s famous conviction, the witness had a sketch made. The sketch looked a lot like Steven Avery, but it also looked a lot like the guy who it turned out actually did it.
Of course at this late hour none of that can be checked. How convenient.
This story reminds me a whole lot more of the infamous “Jackie” campus rape story which Rolling Stone printed, in which all of the accused had to go through two years of hell before it was finally proved that “Jackie” had invented the entire story out of thin air because of her own mental problems. The man who she mainly accused as being the instigator was able to prove that he had never even visited that campus a single time in his life, and he wasn’t living in the state at the time the alleged rape happened.
Rolling Stone has had to pay out some pretty hefty judgments for printing those accusations.
Great point. 35 years can morph a memory into something larger that didn’t happen.
Yes, Rolling Stone paid out millions of dollars in settlement of those lawsuits, but the individuals who were defamed in the fake gang-rape story (the UVA assistant dean, the UVA frat boys, etc.) were not “public figures,” as Kavanaugh is. And as Sarah Palin can tell you, the courts have made it pretty much impossible for public figures to successfully sue anybody for defamation, no matter how outrageous the false allegations are.
But I agree that the Kavanaugh story suggests that the accuser may have mental problems. How many normal women experience years of psychological trauma because some teenage boy made a move on them at a high school party? It would be different if she’d actually been raped or hurt in some way, but according to her story, the guy pushed himself against her, and she fended him off and walked away. Even if it did happen as she claims, it’s hardly life-altering stuff.
It’s not strange it’s part of the damn story from one of the Porky’s movies.
“But there are still lots of unanswered questions.” The first of which is does this woman even exist. If there is an actual woman we have to understand that it is impossible to prove, and even harder to disprove, that the incident ever happened. That the allegation is anonymous does nothing to help answer the first question. IF we accept on face value, as some Republicans did with the Moore allegations from decades ago, that the woman is real and she believes she was the victim of an attempted rape, we are still not further along to proving, or disproving, the allegation. Her belief in her recollection of a teen party about 35 years ago is not proof. With (obviously) no police report filed and (so far) no corroboration witnesses*, etc., there is no end to this she said/he said which leaves either party satisfied.
* Not that they won’t be volunteering shortly, the only impediment is knowing who the complainant might be.
This is why the Left wants to get rid of “Animal House.” Double-secret probation is their only go-to tactic at the moment. We need a conservative legislator with a sense of humor to introduce a bill outlawing DSP.
Apropos nothing much, I’ve always thought “secret double probation” would have been a more appropriate wording, since it is the probation that is doubled, not the secret.
I have a strong suspicion that the reason they won’t leak the accuser’s name, and the reason Feinstein was so reluctant to to anything with this, will be that if her name ever comes out (and we probably will never know) but IF it does, we’re going to find she has a long history of treatment for severe mental illnesses. It’s already alluded to in that explanation given.
Or she happens to be the chairman of the Democratic committee of XXX county.
OR it turns out that she was nowhere near the party.
Or so they cannot discover a photo of her at the time and she is so ugly even a person as desperate as Michael Avenanti wouldn’t “do her”.
Can the reply tab not be placed over the thumbs down please…sorry fat fingered the down thumb!
If she comes out, I wonder how many men will go public how crazy she was? How many guys breathe a sigh of relief getting untangled from such women…. If they fully can.
God how I hate these people
I know the sentiment well. Make no mistake, though, I’m no saint. The only thing keeping me from giving into the hate is that I realize I would end up like those people! We need to hang tough, because I’m sure there’s more to come in the days ahead.
As a more positive note, there id tho from POWERLINE: “65 Women Say Kavanaugh Was a Gentleman In High School.” Some these women continue to be friends with him. These and female law clerks attest to the same: “always treated women with decency and respect” and “he has always been a good person.” ***
*** https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/09/65-woman-say-kavanaugh-was-a-gentleman-in-high-school.php
The truly wicked deserve our hatred.
The only thing keeping me from giving into the hate is that I realize I would end up like those people!
Hatred’s not the problem. There are loads of things a decent human being should hate. Mosquitoes, the potholes on the New Jersey Turnpike, high school Gym scheduled as the first class in the morning, the phone company, communists, etc. What you don’t want to be is a lying douchebag. That’s the essential ingredient needed to make someone end up like those people.
They already are harping on “Grassley knew about the allegation and had the 65 women lined up before she released it to the press.”
This may be true (as opposed to the 65 women suddenly volunteering their comments), and might also explain why Fineswine didn’t bring it up when the character witness portion of the hearing was being conducted. The character portion of the hearing would seem to have been a natural time to spring her surprise she’d been saving from July – unless she knew Grassley was ready for it.
Which is, of course, bull. Anybody who knows the Dems knows that they would eventually pull some sort of “He hatez womens!” stunt, so it is only reasonable to go collect as many “He’s a great guy” testimonies from every single person they could find in his past to provide a counter.
The expected desperate slimy lie was trotted out, the prepared countermeasure was released. No more, no less.
Grassley needs to sack up and just throw Feinstein, Harris and Booker off the committee.
and deprive us of moments like “I am Spartacus?”
I think we are better served by them staying.
Does he have the power to do that? I don’t think he gets a say in whom the Democrats put on the committee.
I think there is a method to force removal from a committee, but that doesn’t make it smart, ethical, or right.
“unhinged Democrat Senators and their alt-left supporters”
CTRL-Left.
Get it correct.
Stuff like this is why something called “Statute of Limitations” was created. Who remembers everything they did or did not do in high school? HIGH SCHOOL!!!
Besides, there would have been at lot more eyes (meaning, A LOT MORE WITNESSES) to that allegation if it did happen at all.
It’s crap. All of it.
The Leftists aren’t after a criminal charge. They want to create an Anita Hill situation. Now that Kavanaugh has stated that this never happened, nor anything like it, Gloria Allred will come forward with a woman from her stable of abuse victims-in-waiting, who are just ready to torpedo a big name conservative, who will swear on their first born that he raped her, or tried to rape, or talked about rape, or thought about rape. Anything to drag out the confirmation and hopefully create second thoughts in the small mind of some RINO squish about their vote.
Stuff like this is why feminists push to expand or eliminate statutes of limitations in sexual assault allegations. They want women to be able to make unverifiable allegations that ensnare men in the criminal justice system, and the men to have no defense because the allegation covers acts that are so old that any evidence to the contrary has long since been lost or destroyed (if in fact the act happened at all).
This is a legal website, and I fully expected some mention of the laws in Maryland. Near as I could read, there are no limitations on(felony) rape in that state. I believe whoever planned this picked something that would stick after 35 years.
There still has to be proof. You, known, that pesky “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” thing.
But he’s not alleged to have raped her.
Wait. Democrats covered this up? How does that work?
The party of Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Al Franken, Gerry Studds, Keith Ellison, Anthony Weiner, etc going after Judge Kavanaugh for an alleged incident in high school, with a “victim” who won’t come forward, is the ultimate in disgusting.
Diane Feinstein has either gone senile, or she is a vile despicable excuse for a human being.
I vote for the latter.
I vote for “both”.
Well, can’t disagree with that!
I say she’s both.
One does not necessarily preclude the other.
Can I toss in Neil Goldschmidt? He still has defenders in Oregon.
i hope 4chan is hard at w*rk digging up who this is…
they might have an answer by COB today. 😉
Tell me again. Which political party is the Party of Hate, Senator Kennedy?
It’s interesting who they leaked to. Farrow was one of the first reporters behind this whole MeToo stuff. He was instrumental in taking down Weinstein and Moonves. Leaking to him lends some credibility to the smear.
Did the accuser file a police report at the time? File a report with the principal at her school? Are her parents alive? If so, did she tell them at the time? Why din’t they confront Kav about it? Farrow says she claims to have seen a shrink. When? Did Farrow verify that?
If Trump gets to nominate someone to fill another seat because Ginsberg, Breyer, Kagan or Sotmayer leave the court, half the country will have a nervous breakdown.
“If Trump gets to nominate someone to fill another seat because Ginsberg, Breyer, Kagan or Sotmayer leave the court, half the country will have a nervous breakdown.”
Thank you. That was worth an out loud belly laugh.
The only way any of those will leave the court is death, accident leading to death, or handcuffs.
Well, the notorious RBG is a prime candidate for the first, her belief that she controls her sell-by date notwithstanding.
Did you see RGB’s latest interview a few days ago. They probably dosed her up just to keep her awake. IIn a sense it makes me feel sad for her.
Her part in the fight is over, she should just retire and enjoy the rest of her life instead of “resisting” in a useless fight.
It is my sincerest hope that two of them decide to retire at the same time.
(Mental image of the 1812 Overture playing in the background)
High school students don’t keep secrets. If this was credible, which it is not, we would have heard of it a long time ago. Saying that, I like many weee waiting for this accusation that has changed already to come.
The corroborating HS classmates are waiting to come forward and will just as soon as it is determined who the complainant is, what HS the complainant attended and when and where the party was held.
Well there is also the fact that is was high school in the 80’s. Young people these days would have considered us almost chaste in comparison to today.
In all fairness I need to know the name.
So do the corroborating witnesses.
I thought she was anonymous? So she spoke to Farrow?
I thought it was a letter to sweet slant eyed Diane?
Well, apparently the allegation was made to a Sanford (IIRC) University Prof in CA who then wrote a letter containing the hearsay allegation and sent the letter to his Representative. The D (of course, it’s CA) Rep gave the Professor’s letter containing the hearsay to Fineswine who sent it to the FBI the other day and notified the MSM without giving them any details so they could have a grand old time speculating.
I believe I got that right.
Yes, I think you did, and where Ronan Farrow comes in (in his own words) is that he talked to someone who has a friend who works in one of the Dem Senate offices, and that guy knew someone who he thinks saw the actual letter. Maybe. Or maybe it was that guys girlfriend who saw it.
You don’t need to know the name, you just need to believe it just because !
What is wrong with you?
Now, when Harry Reid wanted to smear somebody with lies, he made up a fable about tax crimes. Feinstein poncing about with silly drivel like this not only looks like a shit, she looks like a feeble shit. Not a good look on anybody.
Maybe she’ll get one of her eyes bashed out too. Karma and all.
How about rather than keeping the speculation fires burning we do our part and drop the subject.
Killjoy. 🙂
I believe the entire contents of the letter will be out in the next 24 hours. 24 hours after that the accuser and her lawyer will be getting softball interviewed by a Democrat journalist. By Monday there will be calls to delay confirmation until the allegation can be fully investigated.
I also think that by Tuesday details of the accuser that discredit her account–past mental illness history would be my guess–will be released and Democrats will then start with the ‘blaming the victim’ and #metoo chorus.
Of course late hits never end. Were McConnell to delay the vote then another anonymous accuser would magically appear at the last minute causing yet another delay until the accusations could be investigated.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the GOP engaged in the same sort of unscrupulous acts whenever a Democrat president nominated a SCOTUS justice. But they are too good to do anything as distasteful as fighting to win.
If the accuser is a presentable person, that could happen. But if the person has been in and out of mental institutions for the last 20 years, or if the person is a Dem staffer, then it’ll be too embarrassing to let the name get it and this will all just kind of slowly sink back into the mud.
There have been reports that the accuser did not write the letter.
Being that this amounted to very little, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some other woman come forward to make a similar accusation. I do not trust any Democrats anymore. They are not honorable in any way, and will use lies, deception, false witnesses, whatever is needed to destroy others.
They have done this play before, and it has worked, and even when it doesn’t get the results they are pushing for, they still try to tar others. All in “good fun”, all in the name of gaining power.
Doesn’t even have to be another woman. I think this letter came from a Stanford professor. I am certain more professors can be found who will recall being told a story years ago by a student.
My fear is just the accusation will be enough to provide the squishes with cover to vote no
So, when is the vote? I say Turtle Mitch McConnell should MOVE IT UP to TUESDAY.
Get it done!
“She’s had the letter since late July. And we all just found out about it”
Of course we just found out about it. It wouldn’t have had any impact on the confirmation if it had been released then.
If the author of this decades-old accusation stays anonymous we should consider it ‘hearsay’ (in legal terms) or simply bovine excrement in everyday parlance.
But is there a signed yearbook? Preferably one of those that comes out more than once a year to satisfy certain LI commenters.
That would be the smoking gun, especially if the signature is written in multiple inks with different handwriting. Then we’ll know the allegations are true.
Feinstein could have brought it up during his visit. Or, she could have brought it up when she repeatedly questioned him in open committee hearings. But no, Feinstein leaked it to the press and pulled a democrat Clarence Thomas dirty trick for politics’ sake. Nothing more than a classic democrat trash move by a political has-been.