Kavanaugh’s Defenders Keep Changing Their Story

Since Christine Blasey Ford's decades-old allegations of sexual assault by Brett Kavanaugh surfaced, Republicans have tried repeatedly to discredit the claims against their Supreme Court nominee. Ford, for her part, keeps proving that she's not willing to stand down: She came out publicly, has taken a polygraph, and said that she's willing to testify before the Senate, all despite reportedly being chased out of her home by harassers making death threats.

But she and Kavanaugh aren't the only people involved in the story. Ford named a friend of Kavanaugh's as being in the room when the alleged assault happened, with both Judge and Kavanugh drunk while Ford was held down at a party. Judge denies the whole thing, telling The New York Times, “I never saw anything like what was described.”

But just in case it did happen, Kavanaugh's supporters want you to know it's probably still fine. Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative group that's dedicated $1.5 million to getting him confirmed, for example, says that while Kavanaugh denies that the event happened at all, Ford may just be remembering "horseplay."

This isn't the only waffling from Kavanaugh's defenders. To Republicans' credit (because performing the most basic duties of vetting their party's nominee is something they deserve credit for), they've invited Ford to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday. Ford says she's willing to testify, but only after an FBI investigation. In theory, this should make Republicans happy, because if Ford's allegations were false, then an investigation could clear Kavanaugh's name. On the other hand, it also means they can't cram Kavanaugh onto the Court as quickly as possible. So they aren't interested. Senator Orrin Hatch, for example, insisted on Tuesday night that the FBI doesn't get involved in these sorts of investigations. That's a surprising stance for Hatch to take, since he was involved in the Anita Hill hearings before Clarence Thomas's confirmation.

But if Hatch does believe that it's the committee's responsibility to investigate these claims, neither he nor his fellow Republicans seem to be taking that duty seriously. Not only would they rather leave Ford out of the hearings than delay Kavanaugh's confirmation, they're also willing to leave out the only other potential witness, Judge, because he'd rather not talk. Per Politico:

So why are Republicans demanding such high standards and then dragging their feet when Ford and Democrats are willing to meet them? Well, there's obviously the chance that, just as with freezing out Merrick Garland and dropping the vote threshold to get Neil Gorsuch confirmed, they don't really give a shit about procedure or qualifications but actually just want warm bodies on the Supreme Court bench who will vote the way they want them to. That would seem cynical, but Lindsey Graham himself basically confirmed that that's the case:

Waiting too long could cost Republicans the chance to easily confirm Kavanaugh while they hold a slim majority in the Senate. They already torpedoed the 60-vote threshold in order to confirm Gorsuch, and their last trick to guarantee that a judge with broadly unpopular opinions about women's health and the president's infallibility is to push him through as quickly as possible. And to do that, they have to both insist that Ford's claims survive the standards of criminal accusations (Kavanaugh must be proven innocent beyond a shadow of a doubt), while not actually leading an investigation at those same standards (why would we have someone testify when they don't want to?).

But they already stole one Supreme Court seat. What's a little more weaseling to cement conservative control for another generation?