Commentary
The Democrats’ dangerous undermining of our democratic institutions can’t be permitted to continue. This behavior has been on stark display during Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
To briefly recap how this circus came to town over the past two weeks:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (R-Calif.) received a letter in July from Professor Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of attempting to sexually assault her 35 years ago when they were both in high school. Instead of immediately sharing the letter and alerting the FBI of it so they could check out Ford’s accusations, what did Feinstein do?
She held that letter back and [according to her] didn’t show it to anyone else on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She didn’t say one word to Kavanaugh in either open or closed sessions during his confirmation hearings about Ford’s allegations—though she was given ample opportunity to question him at length. Then only after the hearings concluded and just before the vote would be held to send Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Senate floor for a full vote, either Feinstein or someone on her staff leaked the letter to the media.
What happened next is stunning: Only the Republican senators and their staff on the panel immediately began investigating the letter and its claims, while the Democratic senators and their staff refused to participate in any way.
As the three people Ford named as her witnesses were contacted, or gave sworn statements through their lawyers, it was only Republican senators and their staff doing the investigating because the Democrats had all stayed away. In their statements, every person Ford named as a witness said they had no knowledge of the events she described.
Ford then was asked to come to Washington so that the committee could interview her. Through her lawyers (one of whom was referred to her by Feinstein) Ford claimed a fear of flying and couldn’t make a scheduled Sept. 24 hearing. The hearing was then delayed another three days and finally, on Sept. 27, Ford came to Washington and, along with Kavanaugh, gave riveting testimony on live TV to the Senate committee.
During this hearing, Republican senators deferred their questions to career sex-crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell. Her questioning led Ford into claiming she couldn’t remember key details of events from just a few weeks or days ago, such as a polygraph examination or a meeting with Washington Post reporters. Demonstrating such an unreliable memory when making 35-year-old claims doesn’t help one’s case.
Mitchell then went on to demonstrate that Ford and her lawyers deliberately lied both to the committee and to the media, when it was claimed she couldn’t possibly make the Sept. 24 appearance because she had a fear of flying. As it turns out, Ford admitted that she has frequently flown, including on vacations in Hawaii and Costa Rica.
Mitchell got Ford to reveal that she has an unreliable memory and that she had lied to the committee on at least one issue before showing up for the hearing.
It was very revealing that during the course of the Sept. 27 hearing, Ford lawyer Michael Bromwich didn’t speak up or interrupt the questioning until Mitchell asked Ford when she first learned of the committee’s offer to send investigators to interview her in California. As Ford looked perplexed at the question, Bromwich couldn’t grab the microphone fast enough to assert attorney/client privileged communication to attempt to end that line of questioning.
Despite Bromwich’s efforts, Ford then testified she had no idea such an offer had been made and if she had known, she would have gladly accepted it.
Mitchell later gently pointed out to Ford that if she had been informed of the committee’s offer to send investigators to interview her in California, she wouldn’t be sitting in the middle of the nationally televised circus she presently found herself in.
She would have been interviewed in private and her identity would have been kept confidential. Instead, because of her victimization by somebody on the Democratic side of the aisle, she was left to testify live on TV in front of the whole world.
That raises this question: If Ford was telling the truth that she didn’t know about the offer to send Senate staff to California to interview her privately, who kept this information from her?
Another instance that led to Bromwich grabbing the microphone and interrupting the questioning was when Mitchell asked Ford when she first requested an FBI investigation into her allegation. As Ford looked at Bromwich and her other attorney, Debra Katz, in obvious bewilderment, Bromwich again asserted attorney-client privilege.
So, I can’t help but wonder just how much information is being hidden from Ford by her own lawyers.
During the day-long hearings, every single Democratic senator repeatedly and endlessly called for a delay of Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote so that the FBI could investigate Ford’s allegations. Some of them demanded that Kavanaugh himself ask for the FBI to investigate while his confirmation vote is delayed.
It’s crystal-clear what’s happened here: Ford’s letter was held back so it could be used as a stalling tactic to delay the confirmation vote.
Democratic Party leadership has gone all-in on a strategy of using any means necessary to delay a confirmation vote until after the midterm elections on Nov. 6, at which time they hope to have regained control of the Senate, and also the ability to vote down any Supreme Court nominees Trump sends before that body.
That’s looking increasingly like a fool’s hope. The Democrats’ vile tactics against Kavanaugh are already massively backfiring on them, with more than a month still to go to the midterm elections. The increasingly vile and desperate slanders of Kavanaugh—which now include claims that at age 17 he was part of a group of high schoolers that drugged and raped girls—are turning sane people with a conscience against this Democratic Party leadership.
At any rate, a one-week investigation by the FBI into Ford’s claims is underway. Now that she is on the record and under oath, it’ll be interesting to see what happens next.
Brian Cates is a writer based in South Texas and author of “Nobody Asked For My Opinion … But Here It Is Anyway!” He can be reached on Twitter at @drawandstrike.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NTD.com
