Quote Originally Posted by LA Ute View Post
This timeline is hard to explain as innocent. Does the writer have anything wrong?

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There was a moment during Thursday’s hearing when Christine Blasey Ford was asked, “Was it communicated to you by your counsel or someone else, that the committee had asked to interview you and that — that they offered to come out to California to do so?”

At which point, her lawyer Michael Bromwich grabbed the microphone to interrupt: “We’re going to object, Mr. Chairman, to any call for privileged conversations between counsel and Dr. Ford.”

A poker player would call that a “tell.” Among the many things we learned from Thursday’s hearing was that the excuse given for delaying Professor Ford’s testimony was a lie. She wasn’t afraid of flying. She was a frequent flyer, traveling to vacations around the world and, in point of fact, at the time the Senate Judiciary Committee was offering to fly to California to interview her, Professor Ford was not in California. She was already in the D.C. area, having flown there to strategize with her lawyers, who were recommended to her by Sen. Dianne Feinstein. She had also flown to the D.C. area in August, when she took a polygraph test at the Hilton Hotel near Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

This was all a set-up, a carefully planned ambush by Democrats, calculated either to force Judge Kavanaugh to withdraw his name for the Supreme Court nomination, or else to delay the process past the midterm elections, turning the nomination into a campaign issue.


Once you understand this, the coordination between Senate Democrats and Professor Ford’s lawyers appears highly significant. Anyone could look at the calendar and see how long Feinstein, her Democrat colleagues and the media prepared this ambush. On June 27, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement and, within a few days, Professor Ford contacted the Washington Post to share her 1982 tale about Judge Kavanaugh, who was widely reported to be on President Trump’s short list of candidates to replace Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh’s name was announced July 9, and days later, Profesor Ford met with her Democrat congresswoman, Rep. Anna Eshoo, who recommended that Professor Ford detail her accusations in a letter to Feinstein. That letter was hand-delivered to Feinstein on July 30. The next day, Aug. 1, in an interview on the Hugh Hewitt radio program, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said:


“If we could get this all done by October 1st when the Supreme Court starts its new fall session, [that] would be ideal. But I think we can get it done soon after that if we don’t get it done by October 1st.”


Grassley explained in that interview that the hearing would likely be delayed until after Labor Day, because August was already booked up with the Senate committee scheduled to consider a series of votes on President Trump’s lower-court appointees. The clock was ticking, however, and Professor Ford’s lawyers wasted no time getting to work. By Aug. 7, Professor Ford was being polygraphed — and Feinstein didn’t say a word about this accusation to her Republican colleagues on the committee. That’s a crucial fact to keep in mind, now that the vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation has been delayed because Jeff Flake got harassed in an elevator by Soros-funded protesters.

The confirmation hearings for Judge Kavanaugh began Sept. 4. Feinstein had been in possession of Professor Ford’s letter for 36 days, and the accuser had been a client of the lawyers recommended by Feinstein for five weeks. Yet while Judge Kavanaugh sat for more than 30 hours of hearings in the Judiciary Committee, where Feinstein was the ranking Democrat member, she never asked a single question about this accusation and, most importantly, nobody on the Republican side of the aisle had any clue that Christine Blasey Ford existed, and was working with a team of lawyers hand-picked for her by Feinstein.


Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony ended Friday, Sept. 7, and the Judiciary Committee vote was already scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 20, allowing another week for the full Senate to debate the nomination and vote, thus to have the new appointee confirmed by the time the Supreme Court convened on Oct. 1. Feinstein, who had been holding onto Professor Ford’s letter since late July, waited until Thursday, Sept. 13, to go public with it, pretending that this delay was about protecting the accuser’s anonymity. Of course, the Washington Post had been talking to Professor Ford for more than two months by then, and they had a feature story ready to go for the front page of their Sunday edition on Sept. 16.


What happened here was all a result of Feinstein’s bad faith (mala fides) in handling the accusation from Professor Ford. She had an obligation to inform her Republican colleagues of this accusation, and her failure to do so in a timely manner is inexcusable. We have been repeatedly told, by Democrats and their allies in the media, that Professor Ford’s accusation is “credible,” and yet it was not until Sept. 13 — nine days after Judge Kavnaugh had begun testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and a week before the committee was scheduled to vote on his nomination — that Feinstein dropped this bombshell. Judge Kavanaugh has testified that, when the accusation first became public, before Professor Ford discarded her mask of anonymity, he had no idea who could be making such a claim against him. Everyone named as a potential witness to this alleged incident has disclaimed any knowledge of it. Leland Keyser, the accuser’s “lifelong friend” whom she named as a witness, said she “does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford.”

Professor Ford’s description of the party at which the alleged incident occurred, near the Columbia Country Club, has been suggested as indicating the home of Judge Kavanaugh’s friend Chris “Squi” Garrett, whom Professor Ford briefly dated. Yet she didn’t name Garrett as having been present at the party, and no one else named by her — Kavanaugh, his friend Mark Judge or P.J. Smyth — lived near the country club. However “credible” Professor Ford may seem to anyone, the known facts simply don’t match her story. Can the FBI unravel this?


During Friday’s meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse focused on one date — July 1, 1982 — on the calendar that Judge Kavanaugh fortuitously had kept all these years. That entry indicates that Kavanaugh went to “Timmy” Gaudette’s house for a party where Judge, Smyth and Garrett were also in attendance. The problem, however, is that Gaudette lived 10 miles from the country club, and Professor Ford never mentioned him as being present at the party where this alleged incident occurred. Furthermore, as has been often noted, Professor Ford was 15 at the time — too young to drive — and the country club was some eight miles from her family’s home, but she has no memory of who drove her to this party, or who drove her home. If this is a “credible” story, what would an incredible story look like?

The discrepancies between Professor Ford’s account and the available facts, of course, were not known to Feinstein in July when this whole smear machinery against Judge Kavanaugh was set into motion. If Feinstein had informed her Republican colleagues prior to the Sept. 4 beginning of Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony before the committee, it would have been possible for committee staff to investigate this accusation, to obtain whatever evidence and testimony were available, and to have Judge Kavanaugh address the accusation during his four days of testimony. Why didn’t that happen?

Because Democrats didn’t want it to happen.

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http://theothermccain.com/2018/09/29...vanaugh-smear/
Can we just say that both sides of the aisle came out of this looking poorly, from the Republicans' initial efforts to ramrod this through before a trove of documents could be released, through the Democrats manipulation of Ford's story to the Republicanns' fear of asking Ford any questions and Lindsay Graham's tirade? The only two Senators coming out of this looking good are Flake, God bless him, and Klobuchar. I doubt we'll ever know what happened, whether Kavanaugh is a horribly wronged good man or an ambitious liar who was, overall, a disgusting criminal punk as a kid. He didn't help himself with his performance on Thursday, and it's interesting to note that the ABA downgraded his evaluation as a judge because of his demeanor. The will be some benefit to both sides in the November elections from this bizarre episode. It should be discouraging to all and no one should feel particularly righteous.
It's hard to see things changing soon in the Judiciary Committee. I don't know what will change it. It's been going on since the Bork nomination, with each side contributing equally and all rising with righteous indignation.
My prediction: Kavanaugh will become the fifth member of a strong conservative block, the work of the Federalist Society will be complete, many will tangibly and intangible suffer, and the Court will have a real impact on voting trends, in favor of the Democrats.