Rumors about Brett Kavanaugh's supposed innocence and potential vindication have reached the White House, but there's no substance yet to back them up. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images Kavanaugh Confirmation Kavanaugh saga sets Washington rumor mill on fire Activists, reporters and White House officials are consumed with a barrage of rumors, hearsay and tantalizing tips about a Supreme Court nominee and his accuser.

It is the tweet that launched a thousand rumors.

On Tuesday evening, Ed Whelan, a conservative activist and legal commentator, posted a remarkable claim about the charge of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.


“By one week from today, I expect that Judge Kavanaugh will have been clearly vindicated on this matter,” Whelan wrote. “Specifically, I expect that compelling evidence will show his categorical denial to be truthful. There will be no cloud over him.”

In a follow-up tweet, he added for good measure: “Senator [Dianne] Feinstein will soon be apologizing to Judge Kavanaugh.” Feinstein is the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the first senator to learn about the accusation against Kavanaugh.

Whelan, who is president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, has since remained cryptically tight-lipped. But his tweet, along with the perception that he is a sober-minded straight shooter, triggered intense speculation among conservatives and even White House aides about whether he had information that could acquit Kavanaugh.

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Whelan’s tweet was one of several online posts, rumors and otherwise unverified claims that have thrown Washington into a frenzy over the past 24 hours, as reporters, activists and government officials chased tantalizing leads that alternately seemed to damn and exonerate both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.

The rumors and false leads illustrated the intense fascination with the drama surrounding Kavanaugh, as well as the enormous stakes for both the Supreme Court and the credibility of the “Me Too” movement. Some may be the product of misunderstandings and games of telephone; others could reflect efforts by partisans on both sides to steer or muddy the media narrative, or perhaps to intimidate either Ford or Kavanaugh.

Wednesday’s offerings included another tweet, since deleted, from a woman who claimed to have attended the same high school as Kavanaugh’s accuser around the time of the alleged assault, in the mid-1980s, and who said she recalled hearing discussions of the alleged episode at the time. But the woman, Cristina Miranda King, said she had no first-hand information to corroborate the claim and declined to elaborate for reporters. Conservatives on Twitter — Whelan among them — were quick to poke holes in her account.

Several claims, especially ones circulating on social media, have been outright debunked — though that hasn’t stopped them from gaining traction. They include a claim, retweeted more than 8,000 times, that Ford had made a similar accusation against President Donald Trump’s previous Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch.

But Whelan’s claim is the only one being taken seriously by conservatives, including several close to Kavanaugh, who were tantalized by his assertions, given his decadeslong friendship with Kavanaugh and close involvement with the nomination process. A graduate of Harvard Law School who served as a law clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, and a blogger on legal issues for National Review Online, he has worked alongside Federalist Society executive director Leonard Leo advising the White House on judicial nominations.

“Ed Whelan is the model of careful, discerning legal analysis and commentary. It's why all of us who know him take everything he says and writes so seriously,” said Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, where Whelan writes on judicial issues.

Adding to the intrigue, Whelan has told at least three associates that his confidence level in his assertions is “close to 100 percent.”

Whelan declined to comment for this article.

By late Tuesday, his tweets had ricocheted from tight-knit circles of former Supreme Court clerks to conservatives at Washington, D.C.’s, white-shoe law firms. They had also reached White House aides and former clerks working alongside Kavanaugh in the West Wing. But even they told allies they had no idea what new information Whelan might have uncovered — and that they weren’t sure whether Kavanaugh did either.

It has only deepened the mystery — and raised the hopes of fellow conservatives that Ford may not be a credible accuser.

Some theorized that Whelan might have learned of a solid Kavanaugh alibi, such as foreign travel on the day of the high school party where Ford recalled the alleged assault taking place. But no such evidence has emerged in public.

In a Washington Post column, Kathleen Parker floated the idea this could be a case of mistaken identity. “As crazy as that sounds, it wouldn’t be unheard of. And, given the high regard in which Kavanaugh has been held throughout his life, including during high school, it would make the most sense,” she wrote. “Could there be a Kavanaugh doppelganger?”

Whelan’s claims, meanwhile, came as conservatives were nervously abuzz with speculation that new accusers might come forward with what one former Supreme Court clerk called “some other false accusation" that "will surface in an effort to deliver the fatal blow.”

A Republican close to the White House agreed, saying that Kavanaugh’s allies are braced for more women to come forward, and that White House officials are making contingency plans for a response. “The left is so invested, they will not give up,” the Republican said.

There’s no specific evidence that will happen. But in Washington’s fun house of rumor and speculation this week, anything seems possible.