The Ford-Kavanaugh hearing

The hearing on Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination featuring his own testimony and that of Christine Blasey Ford took place on Thursday. It was quite an event. The controversy over Kavanaugh's nomination has clearly become an important moment in public awareness of sexual assault and issues surrounding it.

There were obviously a number of news reports and commentaries:

• Emma Brown et al, Charges and denials fuel an emotional hearing as Kavanaugh nomination hangs in the balance Washington Post 09/27/2018
• Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos, Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford Square Off in Emotional Hearing With Court in Balance New York Times 09/27/2018

The full hearings are currently available from PBS Newshour, Brett Kavanaugh responds to allegations of sexual assault from Christine Blasey Ford 09/27/2018:

Forensic psychologist Karen Franklin has a great post at her In The News blog on sexual assault and the difficulties victims face when they report them, Kavanaugh exposed: Sexual assault as masculine theater 09/25/2018.

I don't get quite as enthusiastic as some of my Democratic friends do about conservative Republicans criticizing Trump and his supporters. But Jennifer Rubin's observations about Kavanaugh's ugly performance are worth noting (The most telling moment: Kavanaugh goes after Sen. Klobuchar Washington Post 09/27/2018):

First, he refused to call for an FBI investigation (even when Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois invited him to ask it of White House counsel Donald McGahn). When Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) questioned about his friend Mark Judge, Kavanaugh slipped and said “you’d have to ask [Judge]”, who of course the Republicans refuse to summon as a witness. The refusal to get the facts is both a telling admission of concern about what they would find and a violation the judicial goal of truth-seeking. It’s a political calculation, exactly what you don’t want to see from a judge.

The worst moment was his confrontation with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) who questioned him about blackout drinking. She explained that she understood alcohol abuse because her father was an alcoholic. Have you ever blacked out? she asked. He sneered in response, “Have you?” It was a moment of singular cruelty and disrespect. One saw a flash in the exchange with Klobuchar the same sense of entitlement, cruelty and lack of simple decency that Christine Blasey Ford allegedly experienced way back when, the memory seared in her brain of two obnoxious teens laughing at her ordeal.

Ezra Klein provides a worthwhile commentary on the hearings in The Ford-Kavanaugh sexual assault hearings, explained Vox 09/27/2018.

Richard Wolffe comments on the judge's testimony in Brett Kavanaugh's credibility has not survived this devastating hearing The Guardian 09/28/2018:

He was hot and bothered from the outset, fiddling with his shirt cuffs, sniffing incessantly, anxiously unscrewing small bottles of water, spraying accusations across the political landscape.

He lapsed into his old role as a political hack, accusing a wide range of actors for his suffering: the media, the Democrats on the judiciary committee, a vast leftwing conspiracy, the Clintons. He predicted political Armageddon as sex was weaponized to destroy reputations, notably his own, as he was just on the verge of success.

One question I have after the hearings: Can everyone who is not a Republican now stop pretending that Sen. Lindsey Graham is anything but a rightwing Republican warmongerer and generally a nasty piece of work? (Jon Queally, He Wouldn't Say a Word to Christine Blasey Ford But Unhinged Lindsey Graham Breaks Silence, Has 'Full-Blown Temper Tantrum' to Defend Kavanaugh Common Dreams 09/27/2018)

The Kavanaugh attempted rape story

The reported sexual assault accusation against far-right Judge Brett Kavanaugh, currently nominated by President Trump for a seat on the Supreme Court, was known publicly only as an anonymous allegation until this report yesterday from Emma Brown, California professor, writer of confidential Brett Kavanaugh letter, speaks out about her allegation of sexual assault Washington Post 09/16/2018.

The way the claim emerged raises some important questions about journalistic and political ethics. Both may sound like quaint considerations these days, and maybe in this case they are.

Irin Carmon

Much as I want to believe in the power of reporting, it was reporters theoretically doing their jobs who told her story without her consent or participation and came into her space. As a reporter, I'm ambivalent about that.

— Irin Carmon (@irin) September 16, 2018

Sam Seder has a helpful report on the state of play of the issue in the public sphere as of Sunday (yesterday), Breaking: Kavanaugh Accuser Goes Public- Nomination in Jeopardy? 09/16/2018:

For Republicans these days, it's easy to process accusations of sexual harassment or sexual assault. Deny the accusations against Republicans, try to discredit the accusers, and carry on as if it doesn't matter even if it's true. When the accusations are against Democrats, promote them all over the place, make up some more, call the Dems big ole hypocrites.

For Democrats, it's more complicated. The party is more committed to women's rights generally than the Republicans. They also have more concern for procedural and legal protections when it comes to allegations of misconduct. Which is not to say they are scrupulous about avoiding dubious or exaggerated accusations derived from "oppo" research. And in general, they are more committed to seeking evidence-based grounds for action.

I expressed my own concerns here last year about the haste with which Democratic Senators pushed Al Franken to resign from the Senate based on numerous but vague accusations which were far less serious than what the attempted rape Christine Blasey Ford is alleging against Kavanaugh. Franken had requested a review by the Senate ethics committee and was restrained in public about his pushback on the allegations, which is the kind of response I would hope the Democrats would encourage. I didn't find the Franken episode an encouraging example of how political parties should handle such accusations.

In the Ford case, here's how I'm understanding the accusation as of this point. These are some of the reasons that to me argue for Ford's credibility.

• Her account of the assault is detailed.
• She is telling her story publicly and in her own name, knowing that there are real, practical risks for her in doing so.
• Ford is an experienced therapist who presumably understands the various practical and ethical issues with going public with such accusations.
• She had discussed it with her husband and her own therapist in 2012, well before Kavanaugh had been nominated for the Supreme Court and long before most people would have imagined Donald Trump as a credibile Presidential candidate.
• She provided some of her therapist's notes from the 2012 session.

One thing about the therapist's notes is that they partially contradict Ford's own current account. "The notes say four boys were involved, a discrepancy Ford says was an error on the therapist’s part. Ford said there were four boys at the party but only two in the room," Brown reports.

This is a reason to question the credibility of the account. But it certainly isn't disqualifying. The fact that Ford agreed to the release of the notes with that discrepancy included could also be taken as a sign of Ford's credibility.

Two further elements of the story argue circumstantially to some extent for Ford's credibility.

• The autobiographical writing of the other man she says was involved is at least broadly consistent with the kind of incident she describes.
• The Republicans produced a statement virtually immediately after the story emerged signed by 65 women claiming they knew him in high school and attesting to his fine character. They wouldn't have had such a document ready to release if they weren't expecting that something scandalous about his high school years might come out.

Is it relevant that Kavanaugh in his later life embraced far-right, anti-women's-rights political positions? I'll admit that the fact that he did adds a bit more circumstantial credibility to Ford's accusation to me. But, as we've seen over the last year, Democrats and supporters Democratic candidates have also engaged in sexual harassment or assault. And Bob Packwood, Republican Senator from Oregon 1969-1995, was one of the last arguably moderate Republicans in Congress and a supporter of women's rights issue. He resigned from the Senate in 1995 facing likely expulsion because numerous credible reports came to light of sexual misconduct on his part. (See: Tomothy Egan, Packwood Is Leaving As a Pariah In His State New York Times 09/09/1995)

So it's anything but a strictly partisan problem.

The follwing are considerations that could argue against the credibility of Ford's story.

• There is so far no evidence of Ford having made a contemporary report or record of the attack. The Washington Post story quotes her as saying 2012 was the first time she had told anyone about it.
• The incident was decades ago. One reason that the law has statutes of limitation on criminal prosecutions is the fact that eyewitness and victim accounts become less reliable over time.
• Kavanaugh has "categorically and unequivocally" denied the charge.

Even before this attempted rape charge emerged, Kavanaugh had shown himself in various ways seriously disqualified to be a Supreme Court Justice.

And Congress can and should look seriously at Ford's accusations and of Kavanaugh's handling of it in the present. If, for incident, he can be shown to have lied under oath or lied to Congress or the FBI about Ford or this incident in some way, that could be an actual crime in itself.