On CNN’s The Lead this afternoon, host Jake Tapper discussed the allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The entire segment was feisty, and in particular CNN contributor Paul Begala cut loose on Kavanaugh, accusing him of cruel torment and more.

In the clip above, the first person Tapper turns to for comment is CNN contributor Mary Katharine Ham. Tapper asked why Democrats might be pushing so hard for this additional hearing, meaning what is the strategy.

“I suppose part of it is, if I’m a little bit cynical about it, asking him questions about the high school drinking and all of this,” she said, “so that he would have to answer truthfully to those and talk about the things they did in high school.”

“But for both Kavanaugh and [Mark] Judge, when they — if they — if this is their story, all they can do is come and say ‘I did not do this thing’. And Judge can say, ‘I don’t know him to act like this, and I never saw him act like this’ and say it over and over again and that’s about all that they can do,” Ham continued. “I do think it is dangerous to go down a path where the standard is you have to prove you weren’t at a party sometime in 1982, the location and number of people at which we don’t exactly know or date of which we don’t know, that becomes a really really impossible standard to hit, and all you can do is go and say, if you believe honestly it never happened, say it never happened.”

Tapper turned then to Begala, asking if the strategy behind wanting Judge to testify is simply that they anticipate him being a terrible witness who will make Kavanaugh look bad. Begala took the moment to tear into Kavanaugh’s character.

“A huge part of the Kavanaugh defense is ‘he’s such a great guy. He’s a better Catholic than I am, he’s a better American than you are’ just ask him…. It’s baloney. Okay? It’s baloney,” he said.

“What’s baloney?” asked Tapper.

“Brett Kavanaugh used the power of the office of independent counselor, he worked for Ken Starr, to reopen the investigation into the of suicide of Vince Foster,” said Begala. “Now I knew Vince. I worked with him. He committed suicide. It was a tragedy. That was investigated by the park police, by the first special counsel, Robert Fisk, by the Senate, by the House, by the Secret Service. All said the obvious, the poor man took his own life.”

“He reopened it,” Begala said of Kavanaugh, visibly angry. “Spent millions of dollars and tormented the Foster family in the most vicious, cruel abuse of power I think I’ve seen in 30 years, and he should be held for account for it.”

“That’s part of his character, too,” said Begala. “If he would do something that horrible? I don’t know what he was like in high school. But I know what he was like with power in the office, and he tormented that poor family.”

Ham pointed out that there was already an opportunity to hold him to account.

“We had a whole hearing where we could discuss all of those things, where he was under oath,” she said.

Begala laughed at that and then repeated his own point that it goes to character.

Watch the clip above, courtesy of CNN.

[Featured image via screengrab]

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