It would seem that pertinent excerpts of those notes would be revelatory. Would like to see those portions and the rest can be redacted.
I don’t know, I find this whole part of the story confusing. Why is she sending the letter if she didn’t want it released? Why is she thanking Feinstein if she did want it released? I wouldn’t be shocked at all if Feinstein played politics here, but I’m finding it hard to even assess this.
Popular thought seems to be that, when McConnell is saying that they will have an FBI report this week and will vote this week, that's him saying that the vote will happen on Saturday. If so, pretty good chance we see McConnell file a cloture motion tomorrow, which is what would be needed for a final confirmation vote on Saturday. Cloture motions have a one day "waiting period" before they can be brought to a vote, so timeline would be McConnell filing the cloture motion tomorrow (Wednesday), Thursday being the waiting day on the cloture motion, cloture being ripe to be brought to the floor for a vote on Friday, 30 hours of post-cloture debate, and a final confirmation vote on Saturday. If he wanted the final confirmation vote on Friday instead, a cloture motion would need to be filed today.
Read the article. It looks like his point is Brett should step aside because he can't prove where he was either in the summer of 80,81,82,83,etc. Kavanaugh needs to prove where he was every single day of his high school career to prove that this allegation is false. That is a high standard to go back 36+ years and remember every single day since she hasn't narrowed it down. That article does not support a real reason for him to step down. Want him on the Supreme Court or not, that writer's opinion supports nothing. Bad journalism in my opinion(see what I did there!).
I suspect that's because the answer to that is that significant portions of the story about how this all came to be don't make any sense and are almost certainly untrue. If Feinstein's office intended to respect her wishes and not do anything with it (which, to be clear, I don't think is actually what she wanted or, as you noted, why send the letter?) there would have been no reason for them to recommend that she hire Katz as an attorney. If Ford truly intended on it never becoming public, there would have been no reason for her to follow through on hiring Katz or take a polygraph. About the most generous to Ford plausible reading of it that I can think of is what I noted as a possibility during last week's hearing: she's truly in way over her head, had no idea what would happen when she sent that letter, and has had everyone around her (including Feinstein and her own lawyers) treat her as little more than a potential political wrecking ball rather than a human being and consistently act almost directly contrary to what she said that she wanted.
Her hope was that Kavanaugh's nomination would fail on its own, without reference to his sexual assault. That didn't happen, and her letter ultimately leaked, so she came forward. Funny how flexible reality becomes when it doesn't match up with your preferred political narrative.
don't know if this has been covered here....could be trouble. Kavanaugh's testimony is starting to look more and more problematic “The texts between Berchem and Karen Yarasavage, both friends of Kavanaugh, suggest that the nominee was personally talking with former classmates about Ramirez’s story in advance of the New Yorker article that made her allegation public. In one message, Yarasavage said Kavanaugh asked her to go on the record in his defense. Two other messages show communication between Kavanaugh's team and former classmates in advance of the story.” More: “In a series of texts before the publication of the New Yorker story, Yarasavage wrote that she had been in contact with ‘Brett's guy,’ and also with ‘Brett,’ who wanted her to go on the record to refute Ramirez. According to Berchem, Yarasavage also told her friend that she turned over a copy of the wedding party photo to Kavanaugh, writing in a text: ‘I had to send it to Brett’s team too.’”
For reference, here's a Tweet thread where the author endorses Kavanaugh a few weeks ago: (Click on the Tweet to read all) This isn't a partisan. This is another accomplished lawyer who recognizes the major issues confronting us now.
I think this is a remarkably ungenerous way of reading the situation. Watching her testimony, it sounded to me like Dr. Ford was preparing to confront him, but she did not want to do so. Eventually, she reached a point where she felt it was futile and decided not to go public until everything leaked.
I think the most insulting part of this is that if Dr. Ford is telling the truth (and I believe she is, but I can't say with 100% certainty), conservatives have made the man who assaulted her out to be the victim because she dared to shine light on what he did to her.
A thousand percent. Only one of them can be the victim. Either it's Ford because Kav assaulted her when she was 15 OR it's Kav because Ford is lying about the attack. It can't be both. She is unequivocal about Kav being the perpetrator, so either she's telling the truth or she isn't. Yet Republicans want to make out both Kav and Ford the victims of the evil democrats. It's such hilarious nonsense, I can't tell if they actually believe it, or simply don't care because they know their base will eat it up without stopping two seconds to think about how little it makes sense.
The Federalist is reporting that the NYT is about to run a story about Kavanaugh's partying (including a letter he wrote to arrange a party for beach week to P.J. Smyth). What's most interesting to me is that Kavanaugh reportedly signed the letter with the name "Bart," which was a nickname that Smyth used for him. When pressed by the Senators on whether "Bart O'Kavanaugh" from Judge's book referred to him, Kavanaugh got angry and told them that they'd have to ask Mark Judge.
Kavanaugh is now facing two ethic complaints from Democrats. The first is from the Memos Kavanaugh received during the Clinton impeachment stating Kavanaugh knew they were stolen, or at least should have known, and then lied about this. The second is from his interview with Fox and sworn testimony that the sexual assault accusations are a plot from the Clintons and the Democrats. Both complaints are potential groundwork for recusal if Kavanaugh were to be a judge in cases involving high profile Democrats or left-wing groups. Not sure how far or now much merit these ethic complaints have, but judges should always have the appearance of being impartial. Especially SCOTUS Justices. After Kavanaugh's testimony, can anyone truly claim he's impartial and not a right-wing partisan? This alone should be grounds to withdraw the nomination and/or vote no if the vote ever reaches the Senate floor. The lies under oath about what a devil's triangle, boofing, ralphing, et. al. just add to the reasons why Kavanaugh should not be confirmed.
It's speculation, but I would guess that Feinstein told Ford to get a lawyer because the chances of the letter being leaked was very high. Feinstein agreed to keep Ford's anonymity to the best of Feinstein's ability, but Feinstein also had a duty to share the letter, or at least the major contents of the letter with other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Which she did, I believe. Once this happened, it was going to be nearly impossible for this story not to break. Not sure what or who the leak was, but a reporter got wind that Feinstein had the letter and that a younger woman was accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault, then it really wouldn't take that much sleuthing to figure out who the accuser might be. A year or two younger than Kavanaugh, went to an all-girls, upper-class Catholic school in DC area, and lived in California where Feinstein is a Senator. How many people fit this profile? Ford has stated that when a reporter showed up in her classroom, Ford felt she had no choice but to then come forward.
Ford should have gone to law enforcement. The fact didn’t gives her allegation the stench of a political hit. If she really wanted an investigation into an event she thinks occurred 36 years ago, she would have gone to Maryland law enforcement.
Say something about Hillary. Or Obama. Or something something witch hunt, 10 trillion dollars in debt, deep state, if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor, abortion, globalism, immigrants, carbon tax, death panel's coming for your guns. Whatever. It doesn't need to make sense. The more of it the better. Just load your friend up with enough right nonsense that he won't bother responding. And blow up your Facebook feed while you're at it. You have your orders, soldier. Do the Republic proud. If you need any further instruction, dial the Kremlin.
