This doesn’t help the case of opponents of Brett Kavanaugh.
The stakes for the country couldn’t be higher as we begin the first week of October. President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, has been voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. One member of the Committee, Senator Jeff Flake (R-Never-Trump), stated upon casting his affirmative vote that he’d only vote for Kavanaugh on the Senate floor if a limited FBI investigation was conducted into allegations of sexual misconduct. (RELATED: Senate Judiciary Committee Votes to Confirm Brett Kavanaugh.)
The most compelling – though not credible, in the strict sense of the word – allegation against Kavanaugh comes from Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor who alleges that Kavanaugh forcibly groped her at a high school party some three-and-a-half decades ago.
Ford appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday and made her case to the country. But, during her testimony, multiple inconsistencies were uncovered, including the number of students attending the party in question. (RELATED: Kavanaugh Accuser Christine Blasey Ford Changes Story During Testimony.) It was also revealed that Ford’s attorneys were not being completely truthful when they said that Ford had a fear of flying to justify their request to postpone her testimony. (RELATED: Christine Blasey Ford Testifies She Flies Many Times a Year After Saying She’s Afraid of Flying.)
Republicans, not wanting to come off as sexist during their questioning of Ford, hired a female sexual assault specialist to question Ford. The woman, Rachel Mitchell, led what many thought was a gentle line of inquisition that didn’t damage Ford’s credibility. However, Mitchell just put out an analysis on Ford, and it’s damning. It shows that Ford has multiple inconsistencies in her story, many of which were missed during the testimony. You can view memo here:
NEW–> in memo to all Senate Rs obtained by WaPo, Rachel Mitchell argues re Ford case: “A ‘he said, she said’ case is incredibly difficult to prove. But this case is even weaker than that.” Story TK pic.twitter.com/05VQoFZc4U
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) October 1, 2018
The fifth page for that memo: pic.twitter.com/tgpCz0o9Jz
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) October 1, 2018
Inconsistencies in Ford’s account that weren’t initially reported were as follows: the timing of the assault, specifically the year it took place; the nature of the assault when it occurred; the response of the perpetrators after the assault took place; and even the credibility of her own memory, as she could not recall showing The Washington Post her original set of therapy notes.
All of this makes Ford’s testimony completely unreliable. She has no corroborating evidence to back up her claims. Everyone she says was a witness to the attack has disavowed actually being present at the party and has no memory of the incident.
Remember: Rachel Mitchell isn’t a Republican operative. She’s been praised by Democrats in the past for her professionalism. This wasn’t a hit job. (RELATED: Democrats, Lawyers Say Senate Choice to Question Kavanaugh Accuser is ‘Very Fair’.)
As the FBI investigates Kavanaugh and his accusers this week, expect for these discrepancies to pop up again.
