Brett Kavanaugh, liar.

We're seeing a massive charade right now from Senate Republicans on a hearing into Christine Blasey Ford's allegations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her when they were both in high school. Republicans are pretending that she'll get her chance to tell her story, but have set her up. They scheduled the hearing before they even contacted her or her attorney to negotiate a date, and then all started piling on with a narrative that she is refusing to appear.

Even Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who supposedly engineered another hearing by insisting on a delay in the committee confirmation vote is piling on, pretending like she's refusing the committee invitation. "I think we'll have to move to the [vote]," he tells CNN's Jim Acosta, if she doesn't come to the hearing. Between that and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) trying to put Dr. Ford on trial, it appears that Republicans are united in an attempt to intimidate Dr. Ford before a hearing is even gaveled in, possibly to force her to change her mind about testifying and allowing them to proceed to the vote without a second hearing.

They don't want a second hearing with a credible witness accusing Kavanaugh of assault. They don't want an FBI investigation into those allegations, because they fear what it will turn up. They refuse to call additional witnesses. They fear those witnesses, that investigation, Dr. Ford's testimony will be one more demonstration that Kavanaugh is a liar.

He's already been caught out in a series of lies on substantial matters: his involvement and knowledge in the Bush administration's illegal war activities; his involvement in grooming and selecting extremely partisan judiciary nominees; his use of materials stolen from Democrats relating to those nominees. He is a serial liar, and has no compunction about telling those lies while he is under oath.

As former Sen. Russ Feingold writes at Huffington Post, Kavanaugh even lied the first opportunity he had to present himself as a nominee to the Supreme Court, a lie that made him sound an awful lot like his nominator. "No president," he said, "has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination." Which is utter and complete nonsense that only Trump could cook up. And Kavanaugh said it.

Republicans are now actively rushing a proven liar who probably assaulted at least one woman in his lifetime—and who, by the way, has some really hinky personal finances—on the Supreme Court. They want him there for only one apparent reason: to protect Trump from the Mueller investigation.