GOP Strategists Are Dreading A Hearing On Kavanaugh Assault Allegation
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GOP Strategists Are Dreading A Hearing On Kavanaugh Assault Allegation
Kevin Robillard, HuffPost 16 hours agoWASHINGTON ― Republican strategists charged with keeping control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections are dreading the possibility of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which the all-male GOP members of the panel question a woman alleging sexual assault.
The hearing, which would feature testimony from both Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who has accused him of attempting to rape her when both of them were high school students, could take place next Monday. Republican lawmakers and conservative media figures, who have largely lined up in support of Kavanaugh, have already begun trying to poke holes in her story and question her credibility.
“The problem is, Dr. Ford can’t remember when it was, where it was, or how it came to be,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the Senate majority whip and a member of the Judiciary Committee. “There are some gaps there that need to be filled.”
“There’s some question whether she’s mixed up,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), another Judiciary Committee member, said this Monday. “I think there are lots of reasons not to believe it, but on the other hand, you can’t ignore and cast the issue aside.”
Republicans fear that the spectacle of male senators aggressively questioning Blasey would alienate female voters, who already favor Democrats by a wide margin in polling. College-educated women are considered key to Democratic hopes of taking back the House. GOP operatives worry that a replay of the Anita Hill hearings ― when an all-male panel of senators aggressively questioned the integrity of another woman accusing a Supreme Court nominee of sexual misconduct ― could provide those voters in particular with yet another reason to support Democrats in November.
One GOP strategist, granted anonymity to discuss his party’s position in this fracas, was blunt: “The optics could not be much worse. It’s not what we need right now.”
“Let’s see,” a second Republican strategist wrote in an email. “Eleven old white guys questioning a woman about teenage sex, what could go wrong? Hopefully someone will suggest hiring a female prosecutor to handle the questioning, it’s really our only hope of coming out of this thing alive.”
Indeed, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are considering using female staffers to question Blasey.
A CNN/SSRS poll conducted earlier this month found Democrats with an edge of 52 percent to 42 percent over Republicans on the generic ballot for Congress. That edge comes entirely from female voters, who back Democrats by a margin of 60 percent to 36 percent. Men support Republicans, 49 percent to 44 percent.
The Hill hearings are credited, in part, with sparking the “Year of the Women” election back in 1992. This year, Democrats have recruited and nominated a record number of female House candidates, including in a number of states crucial to control of the Senate.
A third GOP strategist was hopeful that any electoral damage could be limited to the House, where many battleground districts are filled with college-educated women. In crucial Senate states ― which are mostly in territory friendly to President Donald Trump ― the fight could actually help Republicans by drawing attention to the Supreme Court and firing up the party’s base, he argued.
“The worst thing for House Republicans is a conversation about anything other than the economy,” the strategist said. “Even though House Republicans have less than zero to do with Supreme Court confirmations, they’re going to bear the brunt.” Others suggested that Trump has already throughly damaged the party’s brand with suburban women, so next Monday’s proposed hearing couldn’t do much additional damage.
One strategist was hopeful the GOP could survive the hearing, provided senators avoided direct confrontations with Blasey and simply allowed her to testify. “I don’t think they have to question her at all,” the strategist said. “I don’t think there’s anything to gain by interrogating her like a criminal detective.”
The strategist thought the committee’s Republican senators ― a roster including Cornyn, Hatch, Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Ted Cruz (Texas) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa) ― were likely to behave themselves. “If this was in the House, I’d have no confidence,” the strategist added.
Cornyn appeared to share that sentiment about his colleagues. “No problem,” he said when reporters asked if he was confident the hearing wouldn’t go off the rails.
Other senators seemed more eager to go after Blasey.
“She’ll be challenged,” Graham said Tuesday night on Fox News. “You don’t have to be smart to know that there’s something going on here.”
Igor Bobic contributed reporting.
- This article originally appeared on HuffPost .
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Just because she hasn't supplied specifics, doesn't mean she doesn't remember.
She did name Judge, Kavanaugh's friend, as being the one that knocked the two of them off the bed and allowed her to escape. Since this comes down to he said, she said, they need to bring Judge in for questioning. Of course her lawyer might not like that; if Judge doesn't back up her story she could be opening herself up to a slander charge.
While Kavanaugh might not be interested in pursuing slander; Judge might have far more at risk, and be a touch less willing to let it go.
There’s one person Christine Blasey Ford says was in the room when she was allegedly sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh while they were in high school ― and he appears to publicly back Kavanaugh’s denial that any sexual assault took place.
Yet Republicans are adamant about not calling conservative writer Mark Judge to testify at a hearing set for Monday, resisting Democrats’ demands for additional witnesses, beyond Blasey and Kavanaugh ― even though Judge has backed the Supreme Court nominee’s claim that the accusation is false.
Wait, what!?
It’s the kind of testimony you’d think the White House and Senate Republicans would be eager to have. More than that, why wouldn’t Judge, a classmate and friend of Kavanaugh’s during his years at Georgetown Prep in Maryland, himself want to help clear his old high school buddy’s name.
Judge responded after being contacted by reporters by telling The New Yorker on Friday that he had “no recollection” of any such assault. Later that day, he told The Weekly Standard the accusation is “absolutely nuts,” and claimed, “I never saw Brett act that way.”
Still, Judge wrote a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday in which he stated he had no intention of cooperating with the committee in any way, while reiterating he had “no memory” of the incident Blasey described.
Here’s Judge’s chance to come to the aid of Kavananah, whom he proudly referred to in a Facebook update shortly after his school chum was nominated to the Supreme Court in July (quipping that Kavanaugh has “the same hair as the night I met him” in 1981). But he’s completely backing away. Why?
That the question has to be asked at all is the reason why Judge, as well as others who were present at the party Blasey described, must be subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee to testify.
Judge may repeat under oath that he has “no memory” of any sexual assault by Kavanaugh. But he can also be asked questions about Kavanaugh’s behavior in high school, including his drinking habits and partying (Blasey said both Kavanaugh and Judge were drunk during the alleged assault) and whether he and Kavanaugh drank so much in those days that they might not remember a sexual assault.
Judge has written several memoirs, including, Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk, in which he discussed being a blackout drunk in high school and attending wild parties with his classmates. His testimony is critical to understanding what happened back then.
Tuesday night, after GOP Senate leaders resisted Democrats’ calls for additional witnesses, Blasey announced she’ll only testify after the FBI investigates her accusations. Her attorney, Debra Katz, had said on Monday that her client would be eager to testify, but didn’t want to be part of a “bloodletting” ritual. She clearly wanted a real investigation, rather than to simply be used as a fig leaf for the GOP. Judiciary Committee Republicans almost immediately responded by saying that if Blasey didn’t accept the invitation on Monday, they would proceed with a vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination anyway.
Regardless of whether there is an FBI investigation, and whether Blasey testifies before the Senate committee, Judge must be subpoenaed. According to Blasey, Judge was part of the assault, laughing “maniacally” ― an alleged accomplise who watched and even jumped on Kavanaugh and Blasey while Kavanaugh molested her.
What seems evident, however, is that Republicans on the committee know that Judge would be a disaster as a character witness for Kavanaugh. Not only would there be much focus on his writings about being highly intoxicated at high school parties, but it would open Kavanaugh to questions about the slew of other offensive things Judge has written. For instance, his piece on how some women dressed in a way that might provoke rape ― even though there’s “never any excuse for rape.”
In a 2006 piece called “Gay Sex,” Judge trafficked in the most base anti-gay stereotypes, asking, “Why are they still getting AIDS, the most preventable disease since alcoholism? Why were 90 percent of the priest abuse cases involving priests with teen-age boys?”
He went on to further compare homosexuality with alcoholism and compulsion, speculating “that along with the genetic or hormonal hardwiring that makes someone gay comes a level of pathological compulsiveness. It’s there waiting to explode the way alcoholism is, and requires a constant struggle to tamp down.”
Were Judge and Kavanaugh friends all through these years since high school, and does Kavanaugh share some of these bigoted views? Those aren’t questions Kavanaugh or Republicans want the media to dwell on.
But protecting Kavanaugh from tough questions shouldn’t be the priority here. If Senate Republicans actually cared about getting to the bottom of what happened, they would want Judge’s testimony.
The fact that they don’t, and their rush to make Blasey testify, speaks volumes.
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