Last week, Senator Dianne Feinstein issued a letter to the FBI from an anonymous source accusing Supreme Court justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh of something. Here is what she said:
I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities. – Senator Dianne Feinstein
So what is the accusation against Brett Kavanaugh? Well basically a woman named Christine Blasey Ford is accusing Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were in high school. I’m gonna give the details of what she said and I’ll give my thoughts on it.
According to Ford, the incident took place at a party in the summer in the early 1980s. She said she was 15 at the time and Kavanaugh would been 17, so this allegedly took place anywhere around 36 years ago. Here are the details according to her letter. Ford alleges that at the party, Kavanaugh and his friend, who has been identified as Mark Judge, and who were both drunk, pushed her into a bedroom. From there, she claims that Kavanaugh pinned her to the bed and proceeded to grope her and attempted to take off her clothes and when she tried to scream, Kavanaugh covered her mouth. She said that she managed to escape when Kavanaugh’s friend jumped on top of them and sent them tumbling. Now, on its face, the accusation seems credible, beyond that however, it is a very dicey accusation and there are several problems surrounding it.
The biggest question on people’s mind is this:
1. Why didn’t Senator Feinstein present this earlier? Ford sent the letter to Feinstein on July 30th, it is now September 17th just days before the vote to confirm Kavanaugh. Why did it take her this long to bring it up? She had the perfect opportunity to ask Kavanaugh about it during his confirmation hearings a couple of weeks back, but did not mention it even once. What’s even crazier is that she is claiming that these accusations are very serious, and they are, and that they should be taken seriously, which is correct. However, if it was so serious, she should have brought it up earlier. All this does is make it look like a political smear job against Kavanaugh, which is reminiscent to Clarence Thomas’s confirmation when he was falsely accused of sexual harassment.
2. Ford doesn’t remember key details. There are several key details that she does not remember that does not really help her case. She claims the incident took place in the summer of 1982, but she doesn’t remember what specific date, who owned the house, or how she got to the house. Not only does this present a problem to Ms Ford’s claims, but also to Kavanaugh. He has denied that any of this actually happened so without a specific date and location, how is he supposed to properly defend himself? Situations like this need more than just accusations.
3. Christine Ford did not talk about this until 2012…why? The situation allegedly happened in 1982, but she waited 30 years to actually talk. She first talked about it to her therapist, which has become a problem, because according to the therapist’s statement, 4 teen boys were in the room, contradicting Ford’s claim that there were only two, Kavanaugh and Judge. The big question is that why did she wait 30 years to bring this. Look I’m not flat out saying that her accusations are false, bet the fact that she waited this long makes it a little dicey.
With all of this happening, here is what Republicans should do. They should hold a hearing involving this case by having Ms. Ford come up to testify against Congress and then have Kavanaugh testify and both have agreed to do so. If they do this, the confirmation vote should be delayed of course, but if Ford decides last minute to not testify, Republicans should move in for a vote because it would show that Democrats and Ford are only doing this political reasons regardless of whether or not it’s true.
Overall, the whole situation is too dicey to ruin someone’s life over. There is no corroborating evidence to support the claim. There were only 3 people in that room, Ford, Kavanaugh, and Judge. Both Kavanaugh and Judge have completely denied this happened. So, unless Ford brings more evidence to the table, these accusations are just too vague to make a proper judgment. Maybe evidence will come up, but until then, I’m going to remain skeptical of it.
Update:
According to CNN, both Kavanaugh and Ford are expected to testify on next Monday.
Update 9/18:
Christine Ford will not testify before Congress on Monday, unless there is an thorough FBI investigation. Republicans need to go ahead and move in for a vote on Thursday as scheduled because this is just ridiculous and a complete waste of time.
Update 9/23: Another woman comes forward with even less credible allegations than the first.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/us/politics/brett-kavanaugh-dianne-feinstein.html
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