Brett Kavanaugh entered the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing room looking grim and clutching his wife’s hand. He had released prepared testimony the day before, but he began by saying that he’d written a new statement. Then he started shouting. “My family and my name have been totally and permanently destroyed by vicious and false additional accusations,” Kavanaugh said. He declared that through his many years of public life he had never been accused of sexual misconduct, and that though he believed someone might have attacked Christine Blasey Ford, it wasn’t him. He claimed the Democrats were seeking “revenge for the Clintons” and invoked the Bible: “You sowed the wind, now I fear that the whole country will reap the whirlwind.” When he spoke about his children and his wife, he started to sob. Kavanaugh spent ten minutes going through a handwritten calendar he kept in high school. He explained that he’d always had female friends—“not girlfriends, friends.” He expressed some regrets. “Our yearbook”—full of bragging about sex and drinking—“was a disaster.” He barely mentioned Christine Blasey Ford.

As he began, it was easy enough to imagine what Kavanaugh was trying to do. His confirmation to the Supreme Court is impossible if he loses the support of President Trump, who reportedly was unimpressed by his earlier public appearances. At first, in his opening statement, Kavanaugh sounded like he was imitating the President in order to appeal to him. But as he went on, praising the “awesome” women who had written a public letter in his support, the hearing took on a new aspect, and raised a new question. What was evident was the depth of Kavanaugh’s grievance—his fury at the process, and his anger at Democrats. Several weeks ago Kavanaugh had promised that he would be impeccably independent as a judge. Now he was saying that he believed he was the target of a liberal smear campaign. The line between judicial independence and partisan politics is thin, often illusory—a pretense, really, but rigorously preserved. This afternoon, that line disappeared entirely.