Kavanaugh Accuser Wants FBI to Figure Out What Happened Before She Testifies Under Oath
09/19/2018
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From the NYT:

Christine Blasey Ford Wants F.B.I. to Investigate Kavanaugh Before She Testifies

By Peter Baker, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos
Sept. 18, 2018

WASHINGTON — The woman who has accused President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee of sexual assault all but ruled out appearing at an extraordinary Senate hearing scheduled for next week to hear her allegations, insisting on Tuesday that the F.B.I. investigate first. …

“She’s not prepared to talk with them at a hearing on Monday,” Ms. Banks said. Even if Republicans agreed to an F.B.I. investigation, it would take time to complete, she added. “No legitimate investigation is going to happen between now and Monday.”

I’m guessing she doesn’t want to stumble in to perjury charges, so let the FBI figure out what really happened, and then she’ll testify to that.

Democratic leaders quickly endorsed Dr. Blasey’s position, but her resistance to coming to the committee on Monday seemed to harden the resolve of Republicans who said they gave her a chance to make her case. …

As senators in both parties grappled with how to move forward, Mr. Trump’s advisers and Judge Kavanaugh’s allies appeared to be settling on a strategy of defending him by suggesting that this must be a case of mistaken identity. Under the emerging strategy, Judge Kavanaugh’s defenders would accept that Dr. Blasey was in fact assaulted but would insist that it must have been by someone other than Judge Kavanaugh because he denied it.

Uh, guys, have you thought about what the 3rd and 4th guys must be thinking when they read this: Uh-oh, the GOP Senators are trying to frame me! What’s Diane Feinstein’s phone number?

The approach reflects the shifting reality of the #MeToo movement when it has become politically perilous to directly attack the credibility of women who come forward to tell their stories. By suggesting that perhaps there was confusion after more than 30 years, White House allies said that they could offer wavering Republicans whose votes are critical for his confirmation another explanation for the he-said-she-said conflict without tearing down Dr. Blasey.

Great. So your only allowed defense in the Current Year is: It wasn’t me, it was a guy who, uh … looked like me!

The line of defense seemed to be previewed on Monday when Judge Kavanaugh called Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and a member of the Judiciary Committee, to discuss the allegations. Mr. Hatch told reporters afterward that he believed Judge Kavanaugh. “I think she’s mistaken something” or is “mixed up,” he said.

As I’ve been pointing out, so far nobody has come forward to stay that Ms. Blasey-Ford accused Kavanaugh by name before he became famous in late 2011 voting against Obamacare and then got talked up in early 2012 as a Supreme Court nominee. Her husband says she was worried about Kavanaugh getting on the Supreme Court when she they went to marriage counseling (although Kavanaugh’s name doesn’t appear in the therapist’s notes).

I’ve been wondering how often people see somebody in the news and decided that must be the person they knew back in the day. I vaguely recall having done that and then found out I was wrong, but I don’t remember any details.

I was worried I was doing that a few years when I was reading in the Washington Post about America’s Highest Paid Female CEO, who used to be a highly paid man: Hey, I thought, is that that huge jerk I was on a marketing strategy course team with in 1981? The name completely did not ring a bell, however. And it would be almost too convenient for me to have known a famous example of what I had been calling World War T for some time, and have my example confirm many of my theories about late onset M-to-F trans people.

So the first few times I mentioned him, I left myself an out in case I was jumping to a conclusion. Eventually, I came up with about a dozen items I remembered about him and this character fit maybe 11 of 12. (I think the one I was wrong about was that I recalled that maybe he and his wife had more than one child at the time because his apartment was large although not luxurious, but that didn’t check out.) So I’m quite confident I got this 30 year old identification right.

Two people familiar with the call, who did not want to be identified discussing it, said the judge insisted to Mr. Hatch that he did not do what he was accused of and then, in response to a question, agreed it was possible Dr. Blasey was thinking of somebody else.

Dr. Blasey has been uncertain about some details of the episode, including when it happened and whose house they were at. But this strategy carries its own risks. The letter from Dr. Blasey’s lawyers strongly suggested that it would be offensive to assert that she would not remember who pinned her down to a bed, groped her, tried to take her clothing off and covered her mouth to keep her from screaming at that party in the 1980s.

The NYT says “in the 1980s” because the accuser can’t remember which year it was.

That’s not confidence-inducing.

Judge Kavanaugh has told associates that he did not know who his accuser was until she identified herself in The Post and that, once he saw her name, he vaguely recalled her being part of the social circle associated with his all-boys high school in suburban Maryland at the time.

A person close to Dr. Blasey, who asked not to be identified to discuss the situation in detail, said Dr. Blasey knew the future Judge Kavanaugh in passing before the gathering where she says the attack took place, which could make it harder for his defenders to make a case that she had confused him for someone else.


[Comment at Unz.com]

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