Kavanaugh Hearing

...ntm tripling down on his appeal to authority.

 

I wasn't even going there. He said the Republicans have a "supermajority." I don't think he knows what that term means.

BTW, here's prosecutor (a highly successful one at that) tearing apart Mitchell's memo:

(Click the Tweet, and you'll be able to see all her thoughts)

 

This isn't technically a lie, but it sure doesn't add to his credibility:

 

Thanks. I'll read it.

I had started to pick apart the subsequent items but gave up after number three. It's not a document that is objective or all that insightful, leaving out way too much to be of much value (btw, I'd love to see her have to defend it publicly, which of course she won't have to).

Anyway, let me take on #2 since it's an example of her undercutting her main observation, and in my mind not being honest in the way she framed it.

She wrote:

["Dr. Ford has struggled to identify Judge Kavanaugh as the assailant by name"]

Yet, her last bullet point states this:

["In any event, it took Dr. Ford over thirty years to name her assailant. Delayed disclosure of abuse is common so this is not dispositive."]

No shit it's not dispositive, Rachel. /eyeroll

As a prosecutor of sexual violence cases for 25 years, thus the expert she's been touted as, she should have started with the fact that delayed disclosure is common, thus Ford coming out with Kavanaugh's name 30 years later is not evidence of her lying or deceit etc...and that her disclosing incidences to her therapist and husband without naming Kavanaugh isn't evidence that she didn't know it was him.

 

@gator_lawyer

One other thing, my guess if someone went back through her trial transcripts where she prosecuted people for sexual assaults and rapes, dollars to donuts there are scores of instances where she made the very argument in support of sexual violence victims and the hesitancy of coming forward.

It's why I think her document is disingenuous.

 

Pretty much sums it all up...Mitch walking like a zombie through the airport as women pepper him with questions about sexual assault stories.

 

Kavanaugh Accuser Co-Wrote Study On Hypnosis And Memory Retrieval

This has always smacked of recovered memories Tx.

 

No. He heard the NYTimes couldn’t substantiate it. He then stated that he heard that She was calling around asking people about it, which would mean it was pre-publication. That clearly means he was aware of Ramirez was contacting friends to see if the remembered anything before the New Yorker story came out. If the JC wants to question him about it again, he will be able to clearly point to his comments and say "I knew she was calling around but did not know what the charges she was making were and this was before the article came out."

This isn’t a bombshell, it’s lazy reporting by NBC, who clearly were so focused on playing “Gotcha,” they didn’t do their homework.

 

Not very compelling. She says you don’t make a decision until after an investigation. What is left to investigate? We have statements for everyone at the party. There is no physical evidence left. There is no agency with subpoena power in this case and it happened 35 years ago. What does that prosecutor want investigated?

She also says the witnesses haven’t been questioned. True, but they have submitted sworn statements that they have no memory of said event, so what do you question them about?

And she loses all credibility ability with this “It's probably a lot closer to this: remove yourself from the process if you can’t disprove credible allegations.”

Nothing Dr. Ford has provided is detailed enough to be disproven. Nothing. No date. No time. No location. And all witnesses name by Dr. Ford say they don’t have any memory of the party. So according to this prosecutor, any future SCOTUS nominee should withdraw if a person comes forward with an allegation of sexual misbehavior that cannot be disproven.

 

You mean I could have a quote where I said I loved hitting the bong, and used to hit it every weekend, and years later claim it meant how much I loved watching the Gong Show and I would bang my own gong at home for the bad acts?

Or maybe I could claim that Devil's Triangle was a reference to how much trouble I had in Geometry class.

But because you couldn't get me to contradict it myself it's not perjury?

Let's not be ridiculous.

Aside from that, the part you still refuse to acknowledge is his repeated intentional misrepresentation of the witness affidavits. There is no wiggle room there whatsoever.

 

So much for her credibility.

 

Long really blows Mitchell up in this letter.

 

And just yesterday I was making fun of this. Feel kind of bad about it now ...

 

Kavanaugh involved in bar fight during Yale College years

Did this come up in his 6 background checks?

 

Notice how the focus of the allegations has swiftly changed from gang rapist to aggressive drunk.

 

Probably. By itself, it's not really a big deal, is it? He threw ice on somebody and no charges were filed.

Taken in context with other reports of him as a belligerent drunk, it adds to the picture, though.

 

Even if the Dems were in control and had a 67/33 majority in the Senate, Kav still doesn't get charged with perjury, let alone convicted. Again, you seem to be conveniently side-stepping the fact that the burden of proof for perjury is pretty high and for good reason. Sure, Dems will muse about it openly to appeal to their base (you), but the actual charging and prosecuting of Kavanaugh for perjury here would be logistically impossible. So, we can keep going on with fantasies. Or we can discuss things that actually have a snowball's chance of happening.

 

Dems be like "Oh you Gator fans want to talk about a 'Swindle in the Swamp'??? Well, check THIS out!!!"

 

I tend to be skeptical of arguments that end with an accusation of political bias. I guess I have a few problems with what he is saying in this article. She was asked to express an opinion based on the evidence and testimony before her as to whether Ford's allegation was credible enough to prosecute. I agree that she should have made a statement about the scope limitation since a full investigation wasn't on the table, but that shouldn't preclude her from expressing an opinion if she believed she had enough substantiation. For example on the timeline, she had a very different of when it happened all within about a month when she brought the allegations forward. If it changed over time, that might make some more sense but over a few weeks? He criticizes the lack of investigation into those who gave signed affidavits who apparently have some hidden motivations according to him. What does he expect an investigation to show? They say they don't remember the party and there aren't sufficient details provided by the accuser, like a date, to refresh their memory or catch them in a lie. Just think about how that conversation might play out for an investigator. Finally, he criticized Mitchell for not taking Kavanaugh's statements into account, but there are a couple problems with this. She was only asked to express an opinion on whether she would charge based on Ford's statements and corroborative evidence. Second, if it ever actually made it to trial Kavanaugh would never testify so none of that would come in. His attorney would have more than enough to raise reasonable doubt with the lack of evidence and the inconsistencies provided by the prosecution.

I think several people have mentioned the possibility of a trial throughout this thread and the consensus has been that it wouldn't go well for Ford. I find it odd that people are changing their mind based on a single Mother Jones article interviewing a guy that seems to have a problem with Mitchell. Her conclusion is entirely consistent with what we have been saying here.