Without the context that the findings of an F.B.I. investigation could provide, the Senate hearing planned for Monday pitting Brett Kavanaugh against Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexual assault, runs the risk of being seen as little more than Kabuki theater, or, more pointedly, a gesture of appeasement to the #MeToo movement.

In other words, we gave her a hearing, now we’re ready to vote.

With no other witnesses or evidence, we’ll end up with a high-status, high-profile male judge squaring off against an unknown female research psychologist from Northern California. This “he said, she said” standoff is unlikely to change any minds and might merely reinforce the preconceptions of the senators who will vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the United States Supreme Court. And we know how that is likely to turn out.

This is why we need context. To suggest that the F.B.I. doesn’t do these sorts of investigations, as President Trump did, is simply false. The F.B.I. is responsible for doing background investigations of judicial candidates. I know; I went through one after President Bill Clinton nominated me for a federal judgeship in Massachusetts.

The investigation begins with an application that could not be more intrusive. You’re asked to list the name of everyone you ever lived with, every address you ever inhabited, every detail of your finances. Did you ever experiment with illegal drugs and, if so, which and when? If you had, your nomination might be nixed, depending on the drug. It didn’t matter if you had “experimented” in college and were now in your 50s. It didn’t matter if you had led an otherwise exemplary life in the intervening 30 years.