OK, as we used to say around the Lyceum, shit just got real with Brett Kavanaugh.

When word of the letter from the woman accusing him of sexual assault first got out, I thought it might be an act of overreach by the Democratic minority on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Not that the charge wasn't a serious one, and not that it didn't deserve extensive and rigorous investigation, I just thought the intellectual chop-shops of the Right would be able to fashion a spin cycle sufficiently vigorous as to mitigate the damage in time for Kavanaugh's confirmation. (No proof. It happened in high school. You were in high school once, too, and you were pretty much a jerk, right? You know the drill by now.) Then, three things happened.

1) Kavanaugh, who tore up the English language tap-dancing around everything he actually believes and actually would do if elevated to the Supreme Court, and who actually was the Bush Administration's dance instructor on the techniques back when he worked there, flatly denied the allegations. He told Senator Maizie Hirono under oath that he never had been involved in any sexual assault and, on Friday, he denied the specific allegation both through a White House spokesman and in a statement released to the media. This is a guy who left himself more wiggle room than a bucket of nightcrawlers in his hearings, but now he offers an absolutely, no-walk-backs denial. This is called going all-in. It is also called, "I dare you."

Drew Angerer Getty Images

2) Senator Chuck Grassley—who has stayed too long at the fair—and the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee released a letter from 65 women who allege that they knew Kavanaugh in high school and that he was at all times a perfect gentleman. This was enormously stupid on Grassley's part.

I, for example, went to an all-boys Catholic high school, just as Kavanaugh did. I can say with perfect honesty that I didn't know 65 girls while I was in high school, let alone 65 who would know me enough to vouch for my gentlemanliness four decades later. And I am supposed to believe that Grassley and his staff mustered these women in the past two days? That dog slumbers on the porch and will not hunt. The Republicans on the committee knew, and they knew there might be some substance behind it, and they had a rapid-response document ready to go. And...

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3) The New Yorker published a detailed piece about the alleged assault with the single most terrifying double byline I can imagine: by Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer. Farrow owns this particular kind of story, and Jane Mayer is one of the two or three best reporters in the world. These are names that you don't want to see on your call-sheets. And what they wrote, if accurate, is damning.

In the letter, the woman alleged that, during an encounter at a party, Kavanaugh held her down, and that he attempted to force himself on her. She claimed in the letter that Kavanaugh and a classmate of his, both of whom had been drinking, turned up music that was playing in the room to conceal the sound of her protests, and that Kavanaugh covered her mouth with his hand. She was able to free herself. Although the alleged incident took place decades ago and the three individuals involved were minors, the woman said that the memory had been a source of ongoing distress for her, and that she had sought psychological treatment as a result.

The whole thing is just flat weird. Farrow and Mayer quote Democratic staffers as being baffled by what Senator Dianne Feinstein was doing in regards to the allegations.

“We couldn’t understand what their rationale is for not briefing members on this. This is all very weird,” one of the congressional sources said. Another added, “She’s had the letter since late July. And we all just found out about it.”

However, what it does do is make even murkier the material that is being held back about Kavanaugh's history by the White House and the Republican majority on the committee. Every day now, there's another email released that seems to undercut Kavanaugh's sworn testimony, or at least cut through the fudge he talked for three days last week.

Chip Somodevilla Getty Images

Prior to this, in a piece on Wednesday in Politico, Burgess Everett pointed out that Kavanaugh was heavily involved in the failed nomination of Charles Pickering to an appeals court position when Kavanaugh was working in the Bush White House. In 2006, when he was nominated to the seat on the appeals court he now holds, Kavanaugh told the Judiciary Committee that Pickering was "not one of the judicial nominees that I was primarily handling.” That "primarily," which is doing the work of three strong oxen in that sentence, is what Kavanaugh and his defenders presently are hanging his defense on.

But, according to an email released this week, Kavanaugh was extremely—if not "primarily"—involved in the Pickering nomination. And, not for nothing, but I remember when parsing words like this was enough for Republicans to impeach a president.

In one email, dated Jan. 21, 2003, Kavanaugh wrote to then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales that he and another White House staffer “had a good meeting today with Chafee people about [nominee Priscilla] Owen and Pickering (and we meet with Collins people tomorrow).”

“One of the Chafee people made the point that we should try harder to get out the facts about Pickering, which he said were ‘impressive and compelling,’” Kavanaugh continued. Kavanaugh also attached to that email a draft op-ed written by Gonzales defending Pickering, whose nomination was defeated on the Senate floor over Democratic concerns about his civil rights record. Bush eventually gave Pickering a recess appointment, though he served for less than a year.

I remain where I've been all along—I believe that Brett Kavanaugh doesn't belong on the Supreme Court as strongly as I believe he's going to end up there. But, mother of god, there's some kinky operating going on to put him there.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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