Look at what Ed Whelan dug up on his own. Imagine if we had the FBI investigating every lead and following this thing down the rabbit hole. Kind of odd that it's Dr. Blasey instead of Judge Kavanaugh who wants the investigation, eh?
Good lord. She is the one accusing him. Shouldn’t he have the right to respond to her accusations once they are on the record, instead of being forced to testify first and then letting her craft her responses based on his testimony. Will he get the opportunity to rebut her testimony if he has to appear first? The accused usually gets to hear the charges against them by their accusers before they begin their defense. This is backasswards.
He knows the charge against him. He knows her story. He already has stated his story. What will change if he hears her testimony? Is he going to suddenly claim that he was at the party?
Of course they want BK to testify first. So they can change their story to refute his testimony. She is the accuser, she should go first. He is defending his name and rep, he should have the right to know exactly what he is being accused of first.
Yep, it’s amazung to read some of the comments on the Ed Whelan twitter thread. People are posting that Javanaugh needs to prove his innocence. This is liberal totalitarianism.
Who is to say that she wasn't drunk? This is probably the most embarrassing political moment in my lifetime. The US Senate is its own little Banana Republic. Now Sherrod Browne is being found to have pushed around his ex-wife. SNL is going to have a field day with this sham of a hearing. It's as if the Dems cloned Ted Kennedy.
If Ed Whelan dug up that information, why couldn’t she have private investigators do the same, to provide some proof to backup her story? With corroborating testimony to back up her account, this is no longer a he said, she said. If this Ed Whelan guy was able to do it, then why couldn’t she?
LOL. That doesn't even make sense. His testimony is: "I didn't do it. I wasn't there." She wants to testify second because she'll be the last to speak. If this were an actual trial, guess what? She'd have the opportunity to be the last to speak.
If she did that, you and other conservatives would reject that information because the private investigator is "biased."
Is her story on the record? Is it set in stone? Even if I had “nothing to fear” due to my innocence, I would have to be a moron to provide details and give ammunition to the other side to help them make their story more believable. Just like only a moron speaks to the police without a lawyer present, no matter how innocent they are.
That is the standard in a court of law, which is granting advantage to the defendant. Our whole criminal system is (supposedly) built on the idea that it's better to let 100 guilty men go free, then to wrongly convict 1 innocent person. That is whey there are so many rules in place which protect the defendant, both within our constitution and some of the formal "traditions" of courtroom proceedings. This isn't a criminal issue, it's a Senate hearing, and we already know it's going to be a he said she said story. They've already (apparently) denied her an investigation. So there's really no reason for 1 to have advantage over the other. Neither side would be "owed" the last word. It could just as easily be determined by coin toss. It's certainly reasonable for it to be negotiated among a whole host of terms being debated (i.e. the possible subpeona of Judge, # of other witnesses, ability to investigate independently, etc).
Number of other former GOP judiciary staffers starting to strongly imply on Twitter that Whelan has more evidence. A lot of tweets about how a bunch of famous reporters are going to look stupid in a few days for mocking Whelan over this, and maybe instead of mocking they should look and see what other evidence they might discover if they follow that trail. And a number of retweets of this Erickson post: “What if @EdWhelanEPPC came to his conclusions because classmates from Ford’s high school have been pointing the finger in that direction all week…”
In the media this entire week. She has charged him with sexual assault. She described in detail how it happened. Are we really going to pretend he doesn't know what's happening?
If those witnesses found by her investigator then appeared before the Senate and testified or provided a sworn statement under penalty of law that they were present and corroborated her version of the story, everyone on here would be lining up with you to lock him up and throw away the key. However, that doesn’t appear to be the case and we have a he said, she said, where the he said story has more testimony backing it up than the she said story.
That Erickson dude knows nothing. He's guessing. If Whelan has evidence, put it out there. Until he does, why would anyone assume he has an ace in the hole?
If he doesn't know when and where she is alleging this took place it takes away any opportunity for him to prove he wasn't there. She says it happened on May 5th and he produces evidence that he was in some other city.
