WTF Community

All things Kavanaugh - updates and background

General Discussion
#23

This just breaking. . .

We have one sworn statement here doubting Swetnick’s testimony, but the operative word is “doubting” – he offers no specific contradictory evidence and he has credibility issues – I’ll let you be the judge.

The other statement, which corroborates aspects of both Ford’s and Swetnick’s testimony, I feel is explosive. True, this person does not have testimony regarding the particular sexual assault crimes which Ford and Swetnick are alleging, but she does attest to the types of parties and behaviors that Kavanaugh has denied under oath. Her statement is credible eyewitness testimony establishing that Kavanaugh has perjured himself and thus is not fit to serve as a judge on the Supreme Court.

The witness’s name is currently redacted in the statement, but Avenatti says she will be identified once the FBI has contacted her for an interview.

It will be a travesity if the FBI does not question this person to asses whether or not she is being truthful. And it’s especially important that they interview her because in her closing remarks she claims to have information about additional “inappropriate conduct” by Kavanaugh which she is willing to disclose directly to the FBI.

Every point she makes is highly incriminating, but to me the most explosive is item 6: “During the years 1981-82, I witnessed firsthand Brett Kavanaugh, together with others, “spike” the “punch” at house parties I attended with Quaaludes and/or grain alcohol.”

Sidenote: The yearbook entry of one of K’s close friends references “Killer Qs and 151” (alluding to Quaaludes and 151 proof alcohol); another friend’s entry mentions the “Killer Qs club.”

Here’s Avenatti’s tweet announcing this witness’s sworn statement. It includes his cover letter to the FBI along with a copy of the statement. I’ve also included the statement below. It’s a fast read at just a page and a half – highly recommended.

swetnick%20-%20corroborating%20witness%20statement%20p1%20of%202
swetnick%20-%20corroborating%20witness%20statement%20p1%20of%202906×1146 168 KB

swetnick%20-%20corroborating%20witness%20statement%20p2%20of%202
swetnick%20-%20corroborating%20witness%20statement%20p2%20of%202898×1146 99 KB

#24

Here are a couple more who were interviewed for the Kavanaugh FBI investigation…Tom Kane and Bernie McCarthy.

The odds are not with us that a LOT of new information will be garnered from this brief investigation.

Tom Kane, who was another of the attendees of the July 1, 1982, party told CNN, “I’d rather not say,” when asked about talking to the FBI. Another attendee – Bernie McCarthy – did not respond to requests for comment.

Kavanaugh provided the calendar to the Senate Judiciary Committee as evidence that he kept careful notes that summer and never listed a party similar to the one Ford described.

1 Like
#25

I am a bit hesitant to be convinced about these allegations, in that I may just be too much of a skeptic and thinking that these are of course explosive allegations but proving them, way past the date would be pretty difficult. It would be another he said-she said type of scenario.

I believe that Michael Avenatti does do his due diligence, but am nervous to buy into such egregious allegations at this juncture. If it were to blow up, and someone was not telling the truth, then all the allegations may go that direction. (all or nothing proposition)

One of the pundits said very simply…this will come down to 5 votes who will be the final call on this.

Hard enough to realize that no extra effort went to really do the investigation beyond just the basics.

I just hope the uproar over K’s lies and his outrageous demeanor will sink him.

But I can paint the scenario of the alleged spiking of the punch bowl, etc. Kavanaugh and Mark Judge were no angels obviously. :angry:

1 Like
#26

What will become of the FBI report if it is kept secret? It can potentially come through the various outlets if the Dems win the Senate…and/or it could be read into the record.

Why it matters

The reason this matters is that, without any kind of public release of the FBI’s findings on Kavanaugh, a spin war will erupt that threatens to leave the public as uncertain as ever. Such background checks are less about reaching conclusions than about compiling information, and in this case the additional information will be designed to assist lawmakers to better weigh the accounts from Ford, Kavanaugh and others — as well as their credibility.

Senators on both sides will of course characterize what’s in the report in ways that make one side appear more credible than the other, and the nuances will be crucial — yet those nuances could end up getting buried under layers of he-said/she-said obfuscation, particularly if the public and journalists have little or nothing to judge the spin war against. Beyond this, the report’s release would help us better understand just how comprehensive a background check the FBI ended up conducting.

“Democrats should be threatening that if they regain power, they will push to release the report that McConnell is trying to keep private, and to reopen the investigation into Kavanaugh to ensure that it is done in the complete way that the White House is preventing,” Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, which is leading the charge against Kavanaugh, told me.

All this is a reminder of just how high the stakes are in this fall’s elections — as well as a reminder that if Kavanaugh is confirmed, the war over him will likely continue, with undiminshed intensity.

@JakeSherman

Jake Sherman Retweeted Greg Sargent

A Democrat could easily read it from the senate floor. And nothing would happen.

1 Like
#27
#28
1 Like
#29

RE: Sen Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) vote - She talks to reporters to also say she had asked the FBI to re-open the investigation, and needs to look at what has been done.

Acosta

Murkowski: "I thought the President’s comments yesterday mocking Dr. Ford were wholly inappropriate, and in my view unacceptable… I am taking everything into account.” via @jeremyherb
9:30 AM - 3 Oct 2018

1 Like
#30

Apropos of Dr. Christine Blase Ford’s revelations about being assaulted, Connie Cheung also was sexually assaulted. Because these are harms that have been done which feel shameful, many do keep them hidden. What’s the difficulty in understanding this R’s???

Here’s her some of her article

Christine, I, too, am terrified as I reveal this publicly. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Can you? If you can’t, I understand. I am frightened, I am scared, I can’t even cry.

Will my legacy as a television journalist for 30-plus years be relegated to a footnote? Will “She Too” be etched on my tombstone instead? I don’t want to tell the truth. I must tell the truth. As a reporter, the truth has ruled my life, my thinking. It’s what I searched for on a daily working basis.

Christine, I know the truth, as you do. Years ago, my husband read a novel by Rita Mae Brown called “Six of One.” He told me, “There’s a great line in this book. ‘The advantage of telling the truth is you don’t have to remember what you said.’ ”

I wish I could forget this truthful event, but I cannot because it is the truth. I am writing to you because I know that exact dates, exact years are insignificant. We remember exactly what happened to us and who did it to us. We remember the truth forever.

Bravo, Christine, for telling the truth.

3 Likes
#31

We just cannot believe how ANYONE would not want all the facts out in the open BEFORE making decisions. Some are acting like rabid animals, insisting on and threatening others who question their agenda. We are in our 60’s, and NEVER have we seen ANY party so disgusting. We are no longer proud of our beloved United States due to the current administration.

4 Likes
#32

CNN is reporting on the long list of Kavanaugh’s Yale classmates who feel they have relevant information regarding his testimony, but are having difficulty reporting what they know to the FBI.

Here’s the story of one classmate’s frustrating experience – it seems to me that he has very important and relevant information. It should be a simple matter for him to convey this information directly to the proper authorities and receive some kind of acknowledgement that it is being looked at, but that is not the case:

Mark Krasberg, an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico who was also a classmate of Kavanaugh’s and Ramirez’s without direct knowledge of the alleged incident, had also not heard back from the FBI despite numerous attempts to reach out to lawmakers’ offices and FBI offices directly. . .

Krasberg said that he’d reached out to New Mexico Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich’s DC office . . .

He says Heinrich’s staff forwarded his information to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he then said was forwarded to the FBI. Krasberg also said he became increasingly concerned by news reports that the investigation would occur over just one week and felt he needed to try and contact the FBI directly. He called the Colorado office where he said he did talk to someone over the phone after a long wait, but was only able to get through “approximately 10% of the evidence” he had.

“She asked me to summarize the remaining information, and I told her that I could help identify the location of the incident, and that I knew the names of other witnesses who would contemporaneously back up Debbie Ramirez’s story,” he said.

On Sunday, he said he reached out to staff for Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a key swing vote and undecided Republican, as well as Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and close friend to Flake, to discuss what he knew. They again forwarded his information to the Senate Judiciary Committee, but as of Tuesday night, Krasberg said he had still not heard back from the FBI.

Here’s someone who can help pinpoint the location of Ramirez’s alleged assault and has the names of witnesses who could corroborate Ramirez’s statements, yet after repeated attempts to connect with the FBI, he has been unable to pass along that information.

3 Likes
#33

(Premature) results are in…for the Kavanaugh investigation.

Timed reveals to Senators, no staff…and no discussing.

The fix IS in…OMG.

Republican senators said Wednesday that the file will be held in the Senate SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility), which is the classified area of the Capitol Visitor’s Center. The SCIF could be used so more senators can be accommodated than in the Judiciary Committee offices, which are fairly small.

According to committee aides and a document dictating how the file is to be handled, “The Security Manager shall maintain in a locked safe a log that reflects the date, time, and particular FBI background investigation report received by the Committee.”

The information in the background investigation file is not marked top secret or classified, but it is not to be leaked to even characterized. Senators are “not allowed to share any details whatsoever,” a committee aide said.

That rule will likely be tested.

1 Like
#34

This is one of the top stories at CNN, but thought I’d include it here just in case anyone missed it.

Yet another classmate, this one from college, says flat out that Kavanaugh lied under oath.

James Roche, one of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s freshman year roommates at Yale, said Wednesday that Kavanaugh lied under oath about his drinking and about the meaning of his yearbook entries.

In an op-ed for Slate, Roche writes, “Brett Kavanaugh stood up under oath and lied about his drinking and about the meaning of words in his yearbook. He did so baldly, without hesitation or reservation.” . . .

Roche told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on “Anderson Cooper 360” that he was shocked when he heard Kavanaugh say “boofing” meant flatulence and “Devil’s Triangle” was a drinking game, "because those words were commonly used and they were references to sexual activities. … I heard them talking about it regularly. I think that contributed to some of my feelings about the fact that these guys treated women in a way that I didn’t like."

“We were in a room together – our beds were 10 feet apart for a couple of months,” Roche told Cooper. “And what struck me and made more interested in speaking out about it is not only did I know that he wasn’t telling, you know, the truth, I knew that he knew that he wasn’t telling the truth.” . . .

“This is not about drinking too much or even encouraging others to drink,” Roche writes. “It is not about using coarse language or even about the gray area between testing sexual boundaries with a date and sexual abuse. This is about denial. This is about not facing consequences. This is about lying.”

"I was not a choirboy, but—unlike Brett—I’m not going on national television and testifying under oath that I was," Roche continued.

2 Likes
#35

I hope it’s OK that I’m posting several items in a row in this thread, but major developments are breaking very fast right now.

The Democratic minority on the Senate Judiciary Committee is accusing the Republican majority of lying to the American people about Kavanaugh’s previous FBI background checks. This is a serious allegation that I’m sure the Democrats who signed this letter did not take lightly. I hope there is some way to confirm whether or not the Republicans told the truth.

Here’s the official Judiciary Committee tweet that the Democrats are questioning:

tweet%20from%20republican%20majority%20on%20judiciary%20committee
tweet%20from%20republican%20majority%20on%20judiciary%20committee2032×2474 1.27 MB

Here are some excerpts from HuffPost’s reporting followed by a copy of the letter:

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee accused their Republican colleagues of mishandling confidential information contained in Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s past FBI background checks on Wednesday and alluded that the files may contain evidence of inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse.

In a letter addressed to committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), eight of the panel’s 10 Democratic members said the majority’s official Twitter account was incorrect when it sent out a message saying: “Nowhere in any of these six FBI reports … was there ever a whiff of ANY issue ― at all ― related in any way to inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse.”

The eight lawmakers indicated that statement was false and called on Grassley to issue an immediate correction.

“While we are limited in what we can say about this background investigation in a public setting, we are compelled to state for the record that there is information in the second post that is not accurate,” the Democrats wrote. “It is troubling that the Committee Majority has characterized the information from Judge Kavanaugh’s confidential background investigation on Twitter, as that information is confidential and not subject to public release.” . . .

The letter:

2 Likes
#36

This is just breaking . . . Vote Scheduled for Friday!

If Kavanaugh is actually confirmed on Friday, I believe this will be one of the biggest travesties of justice in the history of our nation. How can the FBI do a proper investigation of the allegations against Kavanaugh in a mere matter of days? Scores of witnesses with crucial information have not yet been interviewed.

2 Likes
#37

This is what I was fearing would happen with this so called “investigation”. The Republicans just want to brush the whole mess under the carpet get their boy onto the Supreme Court and hope the whole controversy will just blow away. The only hope is that the Democrats all hold firm, and that the 3 Republican Senators who called for the inquiry will also see that justice has not been done and vote against the appointment of Kavanaugh.
As an aside my impression is that this man has shown himself to be not only unsuitable to be a Supreme Court judge, but also unsuitable as a Federal judge. Partisanship is a major problem world wide - but in this case it screams.
If he is confirmed to the bench of the Supreme Court - just how difficult will it be to remove him? The fact that there is strong evidence that he has lied to the Senate would be one factor that will simmer away in the future - but how many votes would be required for him to be impeached?

3 Likes
#38

It is a horrible situation - McConnell does probably thinks he has the votes. He just wants to play partisan politics, blame the Dems, blame them on any delay (JOKE) and get their Corporate/R crown jewel on the court. :trophy:

I really hope that the 5 potentially hedging Senators - 1-Collins, 2-Murkowski,3- Flake do have a crisis of conscious.

And maybe 4-Heitkamp and 5- Manchin will break with their red state trends. Unfortunately Heitkamp is down [The Hill Heitkamp down 10 points]. I know Manchin needs Health Insurance for W. VA and Kavanaugh is distinctly about dismantling it.

Heitkamp ND race - The Hill in her race.

Kavanaugh’s name is mud…he is profoundly dirtied by all this. (And I do believe he’s wronged Dr. Ford, and drinks to excess) He is scowled at by his fellow classmates, his legal peers and he will be forever tarnished.

Impeachment proceedings may follow.

This is a very dark chapter in our history. Fairness hardly seems like something that was considered. :-1:

2 Likes
#39

Sad footnote to all this.

2 Likes
#40

In the past couple days, Republicans have tried a smear attack against Dr. Ford, claiming she lied under oath when she said she’d never coached anyone who was preparing for a polygraph test. This claim was based on a statement from an ex-boyfriend of Ford’s who said she coached a friend in the 1990’s who was nervous about taking a polygraph test. The ex-boyfriend named the friend. That friend is now pushing back hard:

“I have NEVER had Christine Blasey Ford, or anybody else, prepare me, or provide any other type of assistance whatsoever in connection with any polygraph exam I have taken at any time,” [Monica] McLean said in the statement relayed by attorneys Michael Bromwich and Debra Katz.

2 Likes
#41

Ramirez’s account of the Yale dorm scene has been corroborated. Gee, FBI missed that.

Ramirez, a classmate of Kavanaugh’s at Yale, says that he exposed himself to her during a drunken dormitory party and thrust his penis in her face, which led to her touching it against her will. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation, along with that of Christine Blasey Ford, a professor from California who said that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party when they were teen-agers. Several former Yale students who claim to have information regarding the alleged incident with Ramirez or about Kavanaugh’s behavior at Yale said that they had not been contacted by the F.B.I. Kenneth G. Appold was a suitemate of Kavanaugh’s at the time of the alleged incident. He had previously spoken to The New Yorker about Ramirez on condition of anonymity, but he said that he is now willing to be identified because he believes that the F.B.I. must thoroughly investigate her allegation. Appold, who is the James Hastings Nichols Professor of Reformation History at Princeton Theological Seminary, said that he first heard about the alleged incident involving Kavanaugh and Ramirez either the night it occurred or a day or two later. Appold said that he was “one-hundred-per-cent certain” that he was told that Kavanaugh was the male student who exposed himself to Ramirez. He said that he never discussed the allegation with Ramirez, whom he said he barely knew in college. But he recalled details—which, he said, an eyewitness described to him at the time—that match Ramirez’s memory of what happened. “I can corroborate Debbie’s account,” he said in an interview. “I believe her, because it matches the same story I heard thirty-five years ago, although the two of us have never talked.”

Appold, who won two Fulbright Fellowships, and earned his Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale in 1994, also recalled telling his graduate-school roommate about the incident in 1989 or 1990. That roommate, Michael Wetstone, who is now an architect, confirmed Appold’s account and said, “it stood out in our minds because it was a shocking story of transgression.” Appold said that he initially asked to remain anonymous because he hoped to make contact first with the classmate who, to the best of his recollection, told him about the party and was an eyewitness to the incident. He said that he had not been able to get any response from that person, despite multiple attempts to do so. The New Yorker reached the classmate, but he said that he had no memory of the incident.

Appold reached out to the Bureau last weekend but did not hear back. Frustrated, he submitted a statement through an F.B.I. Web portal. During his first year at Yale, Appold lived in the basement of Lawrance Hall, one of the university’s freshman dormitories. He was in the same suite of bedrooms as Kavanaugh, sharing a common room. Appold said of Kavanaugh, “We didn’t hang out together, but there was no animosity between us either.” He said he believes that “there were two sides to Brett.” Those who have described the judge as studious and somewhat reserved or shy are correct, he said. He added, “that was true part of the time, but so are the other things that have been said about him. He drank a lot, and when he was drinking he could be aggressive, and belligerent. He wasn’t beating people up, but there was an edge and an obnoxiousness that I could see at the hearings. When I saw clips” of Kavanaugh’s Senate testimony, Appold said, “I remembered it immediately.”

Appold said, “I had concerns that there was a good chance he wasn’t telling the truth.” He was certain, he said, that “what he said about drinking was not accurate.”

3 Likes
#42

If you can stomach this…here’s Sen Lindsey Graham who really defends Kavanaugh…it turns into how belittling this was for Kavanaugh. He thinks Ford was treated respectfully, but she has not ‘facts’ and Kavanaugh is not “Bill Cosby.”

Sheer hard liner…

OMG.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kpKfABYXzw

3 Likes