There is a reason Lindsey Graham chose the moment he did to start yelling during a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee. His colleague, Democrat Dick Durbin, had just finally managed to pin down Brett Kavanaugh on a crucial question: Why, if he's innocent, does he not support the FBI re-opening its background investigation, since that process could find evidence that would exonerate him of the charges made by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford?

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Sen. Durbin: "If there is no truth to her charges, the FBI investigation will show that. Are you afraid that they might not?"



Brett Kavanaugh: "You know that's a phony question, because the FBI doesn't reach conclusions." https://t.co/GGrl0JJrN7 #KavanaughHearings pic.twitter.com/r4wChFr6D4 — ABC News (@ABC) September 27, 2018

First, Kavanaugh was bailed out by Chairman Chuck Grassley, who declared that neither the White House nor Kavanaugh was running the hearing. That's true, although Kavanaugh had managed to stonewall all questioning from Democrats up to that point—with no pushback from the chair—and the Republicans aren't exactly shirking the White House line on proceedings.

The clearest evidence of that came immediately after, when Graham, the Republican from South Carolina, absolutely erupted:

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"What you want to do is destroy this guy's life, hold this seat open, and hope you win in 2020."



Sen. Lindsey Graham blasted the Democrats opposing Judge Brett Kavanaugh during his Senate testimony. pic.twitter.com/97JYu80lip — BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) September 27, 2018

There's a whole lot going on here, but the subtext is clear. All throughout, Graham was hinting that Ford and Kavanaugh's other accusers are part of a Democratic Party conspiracy. That's essentially the president's line as well—as it is on many things—and Kavanaugh hinted at it in his opening testimony when he mentioned the Clintons. If Ford is part of a conspiracy, then either she was duped by Democrats or she is outright lying about the allegations.

No Republican dared suggest she was lying, or even to plainly say that what she claimed was false. They worked around that little detail. Graham chose to suggest Ford was "as much of a victim" of Democrats as Kavanaugh, which was mostly the tact taken by his Republican colleagues. The suggestion was that she'd been used, even though she came forward and said with "100 percent" certainly that Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her. She said she'd felt it was her civic duty. Surely Dr. Ford will appreciate Graham's characterization of her.

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And then there was the moment when Graham suggested the vote for his Republican colleagues was about whether they would fold to Democratic dirty tricks—and looked squarely at those like Jeff Flake, who may be wavering, as he yelled. The intent was clear: remind the troops to stay in line, and justify it not by actually suggesting Ford was lying, but reframing the discussion as just another partisan food fight.

Beyond all that, it was quite simply amazing—in its dogged, extravagant shamelessness—for a Republican senator to suggest Democrats are violating the Senate's norms by playing hardball politics to try to get a seat on the Supreme Court. The response from any reasonable person would be "Merrick Garland." Republicans held Antonin Scalia's seat open for well over a year, with no justification beyond the made-up "Biden Rule." Anthony Kennedy's has been open for eight weeks. Even if Democrats are playing politics—and that suggestion is predicated on the idea Ford's allegations are false—there are no norms to violate. Mitch McConnell already shredded them.

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But now that they have a chance to fill the seat, Republicans have constructed some artificial shot clock on the nomination, claiming Ford has made her claim at the "11th hour." There is no 11th hour. The nomination process takes however long it takes. For Merrick Garland, it took, quite literally, forever. For Kavanaugh, it is taking a bit longer because he has been accused of sexual assault, and some people are reasonably interested in finding out whether the charges are credible. Republicans are saying similar things about the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. It's gone on long enough! Their investigation into the Benghazi attacks—which yielded nothing incriminating on its real subject, Hillary Clinton—took two years and four months.

Speaking of timing, Graham suggested—as have his Republican colleagues, repeatedly—that Democrats sat on Ford's allegation for "20 days." In fact, Senator Feinstein kept the accusation letter confidential because Ford, who said she was the victim of a sexual assault, asked her to. Then it began to leak—it is not yet clear who was involved—and there were reporters outside her house. Ford decided to go public with The Washington Post. Most people would say respecting the wishes of a victim of sexual violence is reasonable.

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What you may also have noticed is that, as soon as Durbin's questioning was done, suddenly the Republicans were finished with the seasoned sex crimes prosecutor they'd hired to question both Ford and Kavanaugh. Rachel Mitchell questioned Ford for the entirety of her testimony, but had just two rounds with Kavanaugh before Graham seized the mantle. After that, every Republican refused to yield their time and instead spent it commiserating with the nominee about how badly he'd been treated and trying to intimidate their colleagues who might be wavering on their "yes" votes.

There was ample evidence that all of this was planned, from the slick back and forth Graham shared with Kavanaugh, to the way the rest of the Senate Republicans quickly fell into their new roles in lockstep, to further reporting:

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The barrage of White House tweets commending Lindsey

Graham's speech suggests this was a coordinated defense of Judge Kavanaugh. — Susan Glasser (@sbg1) September 27, 2018

Clearly, a decision was made that the initial strategy was not working. Republicans hoped Ford would not show up, or that she would falter on the stand. Then they hoped Kavanaugh would perform well enough under questioning to make up the ground. When he began to stumble against Durbin, they went to the full-court press, attempting to blow up the process of questioning the witness.

Suddenly, it wasn't about finding out whether Kavanaugh did what Ford accused him of. It was about the Democratic conspiracy, and Democrats trying to steal a seat and tar Kavanaugh's good name while they did it. It was about scaring the Jeff Flakes of the world away from that "no" vote. It was power politics with one clear message: no one in the majority truly cares whether Kavanaugh did it. If they did, they'd call Mark Judge to testify and demand the intervention of the FBI—an actual neutral arbiter. They will not.



Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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