She wrote the letter anonymously and maintained it until it was summarily dismissed because it was anonymous.
To warrant a investigation I would thank the law would need a sworn statement under oath that what the accurser is saying is factual and truthful
The issue is that they have ways to control how the public perceives her. It isn't a totally exogenous effect. Again, they can basically rob her of the chance of being viewed positively or negatively by trying to make this as repetitive, boring, and uninformative as possible (likely with one person I will call the "designated jerk" to try to poke holes in her case). That would likely result in everybody making their decision entirely by party, as that is generally the response to ambiguity in politics right now. I don't have as much faith in the public in terms of handling this outside of partisan bubbles. I think that enough of their people will either dislike her or ignore her unless somehow it becomes really apparent that she is telling the truth. I think that Kavanaugh is confirmed if the situation stays right on status quo. If she wants him to not be confirmed, she probably needs the scrutiny of the investigation, because her interests are more aligned with an investigator, if you work from the assumption that she is telling the truth. If she isn't, then her best move would be to try to go the Anita Hill route and have a highly partisan confirmation hearing in which the ambiguity is not solved.
How are you going to investigate a crime if she does not know when it happened , where it happened, how she got there , how she left there and got home , how she heard about the party and the two people she mentioned by name have already denied any knowledge of the event
Many women have gone to their grave without telling of abuse they have experienced at the hands of men.
Interesting: From the Anonymity of Academia to the Center of a Supreme Court Confirmation After the alleged attack on Dr. Blasey, a male friend said, she “fell off the face of the earth socially,” failing to appear at parties and events she’d previously attended. “All I remember is after my junior year thinking, ‘Where’s Chrissy Blasey?’” he recalled. “She was the sort of person a lot of people paid attention to — she was a leader, she was great. I was like, where did she go?”
Picture this scenario: Hillary is President and a female potential justice is accused by a white male at the last minute during the hearing of a crime committed 36 years earlier. What are the chances this accusation slows the process down? A billion to one.
Externally they could try to sway opinion with the partisan press or something, but not within the process itself. A lot of stuff is already in the public sphere backing up her story in terms of the timeline and others that knew about it. What else is the FBI going to find if she generally kept it quiet all these years and only mentioned it to her counselor and husband at the time? It's not like there is some mystery witness that nobody knows about that miraculously the FBI would find. They would simply issue a report saying we talked to her and heard her story and it seems consistent based on the very few facts we have to work with. They can't add much because ultimately the only evidence is the statements of the parties in the room. She is still going to have to tell her story to the committee and ultimately that is going to be the bit that people focus on. The Hannity fans are never going to believe her because Hannity told them not to, but there are a significant number of people that will pay attention and a lot of close races coming up. The GOP has a huge problem with women voters this year thanks to our president, so the last thing they are going to do is exasperate them more. All it takes is one to vote the other way and Flake was already backing down because he doesn't have to face reelection so he can vote what he feels. The rest aren't going to risk their jobs over this guy.
There is no hard evidence yet. It appears like a case of mistaken identity at this point. As usual, only one side is paid attention to by the media in Lawyerland.
That's why I've said the very first person the FBI should interview is the accuser. Basically follow up with the information the letter contained. Get her to do a sworn statement to it's effect. Then they they can do their thing investigating the specifics, before finally going back to Kavenaugh for a follow up interview. It's entirely possible an investigation can exonerate him. Wouldn't that be the best case scenario? Even if a likely outcome is it remains he said / she said and they go through the motions of a hearing, I fail to see the benefit of denying an independent investigation entirely. It should really only take a matter of days/weeks. What is most bizarre is that absolutely is the standard practice. Some of the Senators saying the FBI doesn't do this, were around for Anita Hill, and the FBI investigated that in just 3 days (drawing no conclusion). Do you think these senators are senile or lying? Choose one. Two options.
Nope. From the Anonymity of Academia to the Center of a Supreme Court Confirmation This was the environment in which Dr. Blasey, when she was about 15 years old, encountered Judge Kavanaugh at a gathering at another teen’s house in Montgomery County, Md., she said. She knew him before the alleged incident, she has said, countering a theory of mistaken identity advanced by Judge Kavanaugh and his supporters in the Senate. She had met him a couple of times, though they didn’t run in the same circles and weren’t friends, a person close to Dr. Blasey said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personal matter.
The therapist states she said four but is now claiming the therapist misunderstood her when she only said two. Of course I would thank the therapist had a recording of what she said
You often can't get far in terms of physical evidence for many incidents that happen recently. Otherwise I'm not sure what you are getting at?
Couple things to add before going to bed: 1. If DiFi had properly handled the letter from Dr. Ford from the moment she received it, the Judiciary Committee would have had the opportunity to handle these allegations in a circumspect manner. The Senate Judiciary Committee would have been able to conduct an investigation into these claims in a manner that would probably not have become public. Both sides would have self-interested reasons for the investigation to stay quiet, R's to avoid embarrassment of nominating a judge who had an accusation like this against him and D's to protect the identity of the accuser, and that is assuming that both sides wouldn't try to do the right thing for partisan purposes. With DiFi dropping this letter at the last moment, it robbed the Judiciary Committee of the opportunity to handle this accusation in the proper manner. 2. Dr. Ford stated that she did not tell anyone about what she said happened in that room until 2012 during marriage counseling. I don't think anyone will dispute that claim. According to her accusation, she believes/has indicated that Kavanaugh and Judge were so drunk that they do not remember the event. So I would like to hear how any second or third hand contemporary account of what may have happened in that room should be considered credible. We have the accounts of 4 of the 5 people Dr. Ford has said were there that night and 3 of them say they have no knowledge of it. How did the story get out*? The * is there to say that the story would have had to have come from one of the 5 people Dr. Ford said was at the party. DC is an extremely partisan town with dedicated activists on both sides. Now that the story is out and there are very few specifics outside of what happened in the room, people from either side of the political spectrum could attempt to confirm or deny the story without having to say how they heard about it.
The accused could have very well damaged the accuser's life and gotten away with it, right? Now, I don't know if this incident truly happened or not. It's a she said/he said, but it would be a shame and a terrible injustice if she is lying in order to ruin a man's reputation. But if she's not--and not that I want to see him taken to the woodshed over a 40 year old incident--but it would not be a terrible injustice if it wound up putting the kibosh on his SCOTUS aspirations.
Fair point (about it being different from Hill). That was probably an easier investigation, as far as "who to question", and I'm sure that played a part in the FBI taking 3 days. In this case they need to "find" people. So what would be fair here? 7 days? 2 weeks? All the FBI does here is collect interviews. I think they can get a report done in mere weeks. It might not be conclusive, but doing something at least nets some credibility before a hearing. Of course i think it's also fair to say this guy might be the biggest political hack nominated for the Supreme court in recent memory, a "W" adminstation crony no less, one already all but proven to have lied under oath multiple times. Before you hit the bacon, you already admit the political hack angle with your expectation on Roe vs. Wade. You actually think this guy will over turn Roe. I don't, of course, but even if they did overturn it in the courts, that would probably get the Dems a permanent majority for decades. I think alot of blue and purple state dem politicians secretly would love that trade.
BS. There's no deadline. Any sort of deadline they're now trying to create is arbitrary. Hate on Feinstein all you want. She mishandled it, but don't try to pin the blame on her for this not being handled properly. They still have plenty of time to investigate it. They don't want to do so because they don't think an investigation will help Kavanaugh. BTW, I agree about the classmate who claimed she heard about it around school. Unless more come out supporting that claim, I don't believe it due to how quickly she deleted everything and clammed up.
