Thursday’s hearing of the century was filled with high drama and emotion — but failed to produce any new facts.
Christine Blasey Ford gave a powerful, heartfelt statement, standing firmly behind her memories of a horrific incident 36 years ago, when she was 15, leaving her traumatized and haunting her for decades.
Brett Kavanaugh followed with also heartfelt testimony about his feelings of being wrongly accused, being the victim of “false, last-minute” smears and having his life, his family’s life and his good name “destroyed.”
Yes, Ford gave a vivid account of being abused by a drunken teenage Kavanaugh. Yet he made his own compelling point: Her lifelong friend Leland Keyser, who Ford says was at the party that night, not only doesn’t recall the party, she doesn’t think she ever met Kavanaugh. That goes well beyond a “lack of corroboration.”
Complicating the hearing was Democrats’ insistence on playing politics. Sens. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, in particular, spent their time feeding their 2020 hopes.
Too bad: Another Democrat, Sen. Pat Leahy, prompted one of Ford’s most powerful moments by asking about her most visceral memory of that night: It was her attackers’ laughter, she said.
But most of the Democrats’ time went for demanding an FBI investigation. This when their own staffers have been madly investigating — and feeding tips to the media. (Indeed, it was some Democrat who forced Ford to abandon her anonymity by siccing the press on her.)
And the senators know full well that an FBI probe would change nothing. The bureau (as then-Sen. Joe Biden noted during the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings) doesn’t make judgments about witnesses’ guilt or credibility; it merely takes statements. And the Senate already has such sworn statements from the three witnesses Ford says were at the party: None has any memory of the event.
Kavanaugh was absolutely right, and justified in his anger, over the politics Dems have played: waiting until the 11th hour to raise Ford’s allegations and then calling for an FBI probe that would only serve to delay — all while he and his family suffered.
He accused them, rightly, of “lying in wait” to pounce, after failing to “take me out” on the merits. It’s a “national disgrace,” he said, that could mar US politics for decades.
Senators must now weigh the testimony and (scant) evidence and decide for themselves. It’s time to vote — and end the circus.