Although the general setup of the hearing will be an investigation of the merits of two testimonies against each other, in reality Ford will need to scale an edifice of skepticism built up against her account in the past weeks. There’s the partisan interest of Republicans on the committee, and their reluctance to involve nonpartisan investigators like the FBI. And there are the Republican operatives close to both committee members and Kavanaugh, who have tried as hard as they could to poison the well of fair play. Last week Ed Whelan, a conservative lawyer and the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, was forced to apologize after spreading a poorly sourced conspiracy theory on Twitter that Ford may have mistaken Kavanaugh for another associate of theirs who is now a high-school teacher. The episode was embarrassing, bizarre, and harmful, but did reveal a striking level of coordination and insularity within the ranks of the Republican elite—including people connected to the Judiciary Committee—many of whom teased Whelan’s findings before he released them.

Kavanaugh’s testimony won’t be delivered devoid of context, either. Over the past few weeks, more women have emerged. On September 23, New Yorker writers Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow reported that Deborah Ramirez, a classmate of Kavanaugh’s at Yale University, alleges that Kavanaugh “exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent” during the 1983–84 school year. Represented by prominent Donald Trump gadfly Michael Avenatti, a third woman, Julie Swetnick, has come forward with allegations that in the early ’80s, Kavanaugh and Judge engaged in a party culture where young women were plied with drinks or drugs as a prelude to “gang rape,” and that both men “were present” during a gang rape in which Swetnick was a victim.

In perhaps any other time, the weight of these three allegations, leveled by three named women either under penalty of perjury or via rigorous investigative outlets, might have been enough to derail a confirmation. Judicial confirmations are not criminal proceedings, and the key questions are not of reasonable doubt or circumstantial versus hard evidence, but of reputation, character, and the ability to do the job and to keep the nation’s highest court free of even the hint of scandal or blemish. Looking beyond Kavanaugh, there are other federal judges who are well regarded in Republican circles who would be likely to enforce the same conservative doctrine while on the Supreme Court and whose confirmation might not be so politically or morally risky.

But this is not any other time. This is Trump’s time. In a rambling and otherwise incoherent press conference Wednesday night, the president made clear that this confirmation process is also about him. “I’ve had numerous accusations about me.… They made false statements about me knowing they were false,” he said, referring to numerous claims of sexual misconduct brought against him by at least 19 women. “It does impact my opinion … because I’ve had a lot of false charges made at me,” Trump said. He criticized the #MeToo movement for going too far, and undermined his stated willingness to hear Ford out by calling all the allegations against Kavanaugh a “big fat con.” At times, it was difficult to parse whether Trump was referring to claims made against him, Kavanaugh, or others. But he did have one point of crystal clarity: “This is beyond Supreme Court. This has everything to do with our country,” Trump said.