Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (SC) feigned interest in hearing from Ford, while at the same time making clear that it was only to get a new unnecessary step out of the the way "so the process can continue as scheduled"—as in nothing she could say would change his mind, anyway. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, whined that he’d hate to be asked what he was doing 35 years ago, which resulted in this pointed response, proving that men like him can sustain being awful human beings for so many years:

x The answer: busy voting against MLK Day pic.twitter.com/C4xhMZj4Am — Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) September 18, 2018

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell whined that Democrats were being mean and mucking up the process, the hypocrisy of which one veteran reporter could barely stomach:

x Even for those of us used to bipartisan hypocrisy, watching @SenateMajLdr Mitch McConnell complain about Kavanaugh confirmation process delays -- after he gave Merrick Garland NO process & left a SCOTUS seat open more than a year -- is hard to take. Ã¢ÂÂ Jackie Calmes (@jackiekcalmes) September 18, 2018

The same Mitch McConnell who wouldn't even give Merrick Garland a hearing. Chris Hayes perfectly summarized the hypocrisy:

x The penalty that Kavanaugh is facing here, in the wake of allegation of attempted rape, is not getting a Supreme Court seat. ItÃ¢ÂÂs literally the same penalty already imposed on Merrill Garland for the crime of...being nominated by a Democrat. Ã¢ÂÂ Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 18, 2018

Other Republican senators whined that Democrats were trying to destroy Kavanaugh's life, because trying to hold someone accountable for possible attempted rape is worse than committing attempted rape. It's hard not to gasp at the wretchedness of these Republicans.

The reality is that Brett Kavanaugh is a proven liar. Under oath. About his involvement in warrantless wiretapping and authorizing torture, his support for a judicial appointee who vehemently opposes Roe v. Wade, and his support for another judicial appointee who was lenient on a man convicted of a burning a cross in front of an interracial couple’s house. And then there was Kavanaugh’s lies about his involvement with documents stolen from Democratic staffers. And given that the Supreme Court may end up having to rule on Trump’s attempts to shut down or evade the Mueller investigations, there also are important questions about Kavanaugh’s obfuscating his relationship to the law firm that is defending Trump, and the firm’s curious and dishonest attempt to help him pretend he has no conflicts of interest.

Brett Kavanaugh is a man with a profound credibility problem. But could he have committed sexual assault? Ford named another participant in the alleged assault, and his personal history offers some possible clues:

According to Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when she was 17, Kavanaugh wasn’t the only man in the room when he allegedly held her down and “fumbled with her clothes, seemingly hindered by his intoxication.” Ford says conservative writer Mark Judge, Kavanaugh’s friend and classmate from Georgetown Preparatory School, who now writes for websites like the Daily Caller and once authored a book about his personal struggle with alcoholism as a teenager, was also present. According to Ford, Judge stood across the room and turned up the music to drown out her yelling, while he and Kavanaugh, both of whom were drunk, “laughed maniacally.” Judge then allegedly proceeded to jump on Ford and Kavanaugh twice, which toppled over the latter and helped Ford free herself. (Kavanaugh “categorically and unequivocally” denies the allegations.)

Judge, of course, also denies the allegations, although he is unwilling to make such a denial under oath before the Senate. But his previous writings and statements certainly make the allegations against him credible:

In a piece from 2017, Judge wrote that “what women wear and their body language also send signals about their sexuality.” While he also explicitly wrote several times in one paragraph that women shouldn’t be raped, he followed each statement with a hard “but.” “… Women who dress like prostitutes are also sending out signals,” he wrote. “The signal is not that they should be raped. But if a posture while drinking coffee is indicative of the soul and personality within, than so is marching down the street in your underwear.”

And it gets worse:

“There’s also that ambiguous middle ground, where the woman seems interested and indicates, whether verbally or not, that the man needs to prove himself to her,” he wrote. “And if that man is any kind of man, he’ll allow himself the awesome power, the wonderful beauty, of uncontrollable male passion.”

Which makes Judge's refusal to testify under oath understandable. Because it wouldn’t be helpful if one of Kavanaugh's old friends turned out to be an unwitting character witness against him. Which brings us to what Kavanaugh has himself revealed about his own character.

x Brett Kavanaugh talking about his high school in 2015: Ã¢ÂÂWhat happens at Georgetown Prep, stays at Georgetown Prep.Ã¢ÂÂ



I can't imagine any parent accepting this view. Is this really what America wants in its next Supreme Court Justice? pic.twitter.com/WhL8YeZQ78 Ã¢ÂÂ Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) September 18, 2018

He thinks it's funny that his and his schoolmates’ behavior was so bad as to require a code of silence. But such behavior didn’t seem to stay at Georgetown Prep. In college, Kavanaugh joined a fraternity and a men's club that were known for wild partying and a degrading attitude toward women. Years later, the fraternity would be banned from campus for five years, "after videos circulated of fraternity recruits chanting 'no means yes, yes means anal' in front of the University’s Women’s Center." And by his own account, the behavior continued in law school. In a 2014 public speech to the Yale Law School Federalist Society, he was still bragging about the wild partying when he was there. Even in his thirties, while working in the Bush administration, Kavanaugh was partying to the point of having to apologize for his aggressive behavior, while afterward again insisting that those participating "be very, very vigilant w/r/t confidentiality on all issues and all fronts, including with spouses."

Anyone notice a pattern here?

Anyone doubt that the Republicans' refusal to allow an FBI investigation into the attack on Ford is anything less than a desperate attempt at a cover-up? By his own admission, Kavanaugh has needed help covering up his behavior for decades.

This is a man we’re supposed to believe as a teen was incapable of sexually assaulting another teen, even though as an adult he has bragged about binge drinking in high school and law school, and as an adult he has still needed to apologize and cover his tracks for unspecified behavior while partying, and his alleged accomplice on the night of the attack on Ford has a running history of rationalizing rape. This is a man Republicans have declared to be a fine human being, but they know that he is not. And he didn’t need to be drunk or partying to reveal what kind of person he really is.

As a political operative, he was a vicious partisan attack dog:

He was not quite 30 years old in 1994 when Kenneth Starr was named independent counsel to investigate “Whitewater,” a bad land deal that would morph into a probe of Clinton’s extramarital affair with an intern in the Oval Office. Starr enlisted Kavanaugh to join his legal team, which wrote what would be known as the Starr Report. Kavanaugh in 1998 memorably suggested a series of tough, sexually explicit questions for Clinton to answer about his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky. “The idea of going easy on him at the questioning is ... abhorrent to me,” Kavanaugh wrote in the two-page memo that was sent to Starr and his staff attorneys on Aug. 15, 1998, two days before Clinton testified to a grand jury via video feed from the White House. “It may not be our job to impose sanctions on him, but it is our job to make his pattern of revolting behavior clear — piece by painful piece.”

And worse. Much worse.

x By reopening the investigation of Vince Foster's suicide Kavanuagh "tormented the Foster family in the most vicious, cruel, abuse of power I think I've ever seen in 30 years," says @PaulBegala: "If he would do something that horrible, I don't know what he was like in high school" pic.twitter.com/Nb3FsHWJ8c Ã¢ÂÂ The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) September 18, 2018

Everything we know about Kavanaugh makes the accusations against him credible. He was a proud binge drinker, one of his close friends from that era even as an adult was rationalizing rape, his political work wasn’t just partisan, it was steeped in cruel conspiracy theories, and he is a proven liar. In contrast, everything we know about Ford makes her credible.

The Washington Post interviewed Linda Fairstein, who was chief of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s Sex Crimes Bureau, who said "it was completely normal that Ford 'didn’t remember' several details about the night of the alleged attack:

“If she testifies, I would expect her to say ‘I don’t remember’ scores of times,” Fairstein said, for two reasons: the passage of time and trauma. “She found this experience so upsetting that she felt her life was in danger. There might be 220 things she doesn’t know and then a very specific sentence about what happened that was so traumatic."

In the same article, the Post also interviewed an expert on child sexual abuse who has testified in hundreds of cases:

According to psychologist Anne Meltzer, it may be challenging to recall peripheral details of an assault years later — such as who spread word of the party, who was the designated driver — but that should not detract from a victim’s veracity “if she can clearly and consistently articulate central details of what happened, such as the who, what and where,” she told The Post.

Ford’s story has the ring of honesty.

“To me, it’s compelling that [Ford] puts someone else there, and that the person who happens to be in the room has a blackout drinking problem," said Fairstein. Judge, now a filmmaker and author, described himself similarly in his book “Wasted: Tales of a Gen-X Drunk.” “That’s sort of the intoxicated behavior she described that night,” she added.

Former prosecutor Douglas Wigdor, who now represents victims of sexual abuse and sexual harassment concurred:

Wigdor echoed Fairstein, saying: “She put a third person in the room. If you were making something up, why would you do that?”

Indeed. Why would she? It is telling that it is Ford who wants an FBI investigation, while Republicans are dishonestly balking, making all sorts of excuses for why the FBI can’t get involved.

x I believe the John Tower hearings set the precedent here. New information was introduced late in the process that had not been uncovered in the FBI background check. The Chairman, Sam Nunn, immediately referred the matter to the FBI Director to reopen the back ground check. Ã¢ÂÂ Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) September 20, 2018

Someone is afraid of a full investigation, and it is not Ford.

x A number of former prosecutors and FBI agents have said today that people who make up allegations tend not to demand that the FBI investigate them. Ã¢ÂÂ Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) September 19, 2018

And Ford had nothing to gain by coming forward. It wasn't just the typical fear that is common among victims of sexual assault, it was the potential backlash the public spotlight of her coming forth would bring:

The fog was just lifting at Capitola beach one morning this July when Christine Blasey Ford confided in two friends. She had written her congresswoman and anonymously tipped off the Washington Post with her explosive story, claiming Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in high school. But now she was worried that her name would come out. She was bracing for an avalanche of attacks and searching her memory for anyone, anything, that could validate her story. “I’ve been trying to forget this all my life, and now I’m supposed to remember every little detail,” one of those friends, Jim Gensheimer, recalled Blasey Ford saying that summer day while watching her kids participate in a Junior Lifeguard program. “They’re going to be all over me.”

Which has been the case. She is being viciously smeared and has been subject to death threats, as her entire life has been turned upside down:

Ford and her family have moved out of their home as a security precaution, and she and her husband are staying apart from their two children. “She’s spending her time trying to figure out the logistics of her life as it is now and how to keep herself and her family safe,” the person said.

Which is the quick answer to Republicans who dishonestly ask why she didn’t speak up sooner, or why victims of sexual assault in general—particularly when committed by prominent or powerful men—are reluctant to speak up. But Republicans are what they are.

In the interview with The Post, Ford said she hesitated to speak publicly because she anticipated that her life would be upended and that Kavanaugh could be confirmed regardless. “Why suffer through the annihilation if it’s not going to matter?” she said.

Because Republicans are what they are. They don't want a real investigation. They don't want the facts.

As with Kavanaugh's other lies, Senate Republicans don't care about the facts, and they don't care whether Kavanaugh is lying about sexual assault. They only want to get him on the court, and they almost certainly will. And if there are ever going to be full investigations of his lies, if he is ever going to be held accountable for his behavior, it almost certainly will have to come after he has been confirmed. By a Democratic Congress. Starting next year. If you vote.

