Supreme Misgivings, Con't

With new allegations of sexual harassment during his college years, Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, may have just met his match in the slayer of sexual harassers, The New Yorker's Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow.

As Senate Republicans press for a swift vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Senate Democrats are investigating a new allegation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh. The claim dates to the 1983-84 academic school year, when Kavanaugh was a freshman at Yale University. The offices of at least four Democratic senators have received information about the allegation, and at least two have begun investigating it. Senior Republican staffers also learned of the allegation last week and, in conversations with The New Yorker, expressed concern about its potential impact on Kavanaugh’s nomination. Soon after, Senate Republicans issued renewed calls to accelerate the timing of a committee vote. The Democratic Senate offices reviewing the allegations believe that they merit further investigation. “This is another serious, credible, and disturbing allegation against Brett Kavanaugh. It should be fully investigated,” Senator Mazie Hirono, of Hawaii, said. An aide in one of the other Senate offices added, “These allegations seem credible, and we’re taking them very seriously. If established, they’re clearly disqualifying.”

The woman at the center of the story, Deborah Ramirez, who is fifty-three, attended Yale with Kavanaugh, where she studied sociology and psychology. Later, she spent years working for an organization that supports victims of domestic violence. The New Yorker contacted Ramirez after learning of her possible involvement in an incident involving Kavanaugh. The allegation was conveyed to Democratic senators by a civil-rights lawyer. For Ramirez, the sudden attention has been unwelcome, and prompted difficult choices. She was at first hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident. In her initial conversations with The New Yorker, she was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty. After six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away. Ramirez is now calling for the F.B.I. to investigate Kavanaugh’s role in the incident. “I would think an F.B.I. investigation would be warranted,” she said.

In a statement, Kavanaugh wrote, “This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name--and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building--against these last-minute allegations.”

The White House spokesperson Kerri Kupec said the Administration stood by Kavanaugh. “This 35-year-old, uncorroborated claim is the latest in a coordinated smear campaign by the Democrats designed to tear down a good man. This claim is denied by all who were said to be present and is wholly inconsistent with what many women and men who knew Judge Kavanaugh at the time in college say. The White House stands firmly behind Judge Kavanaugh.”

Ramirez said that, when both she and Kavanaugh were freshmen at Yale, she was invited by a friend on the women’s soccer team to a dorm-room party. She recalled that the party took place in a suite at Lawrance Hall, in the part of Yale known as Old Campus, and that a small group of students decided to play a drinking game together. “We were sitting in a circle,” she said. “People would pick who drank.” Ramirez was chosen repeatedly, she said, and quickly became inebriated. At one point, she said, a male student pointed a gag plastic penis in her direction. Later, she said, she was on the floor, foggy and slurring her words, as that male student and another stood nearby. (Ramirez identified the two male onlookers, but, at her request, The New Yorker is not naming them.)

A third male student then exposed himself to her. “I remember a penis being in front of my face,” she said. “I knew that’s not what I wanted, even in that state of mind.” She recalled remarking, “That’s not a real penis,” and the other students laughing at her confusion and taunting her, one encouraging her to “kiss it.” She said that she pushed the person away, touching it in the process. Ramirez, who was raised a devout Catholic in Connecticut, said that she was shaken. “I wasn’t going to touch a penis until I was married,” she said. “I was embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated.” She remembers Kavanaugh standing to her right and laughing, pulling up his pants. “Brett was laughing,” she said. “I can still see his face, and his hips coming forward, like when you pull up your pants.” She recalled another male student shouting about the incident. “Somebody yelled down the hall, ‘Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis in Debbie’s face,’ ” she said. “It was his full name. I don’t think it was just ‘Brett.’ And I remember hearing and being mortified that this was out there.”

Ramirez acknowledged that there are significant gaps in her memories of the evening, and that, if she ever presents her story to the F.B.I. or members of the Senate, she will inevitably be pressed on her motivation for coming forward after so many years, and questioned about her memory, given her drinking at the party.

And yet, after several days of considering the matter carefully, she said, “I’m confident about the pants coming up, and I’m confident about Brett being there.” Ramirez said that what has stayed with her most forcefully is the memory of laughter at her expense from Kavanaugh and the other students. “It was kind of a joke,” she recalled. “And now it’s clear to me it wasn’t a joke.”

If things were somehow not devastatingly bad for Kavanaugh's nomination chances before, they just took a cannonball to the gut in the last 24 hours.  Deborah Ramirez has put her entire existence on the line.  She will be crucified, the way Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is being crucified, the way Anita Hill was crucified 20 years ago.

Let's not forget either that Senate Republicans knew about the Ramirez allegations last week, and quickly demanded a vote for Monday before those allegations could be investigated, or before either Ramirez or Ford could testify.  Only when America made that politically impossible did that schedule change.

I predict, I hope, that this breaks GOP Senators Collins and Murkowski, and that it ends this farce...and you know what?  Somehow, I don't think that Dr. Ford and Ms. Ramirez are the only ones. But I agree with Steve M. that the cold hard reality is that Kavanaugh will be confirmed.

The GOP seems dug in; the message from the right is, in effect, "pics or it didn't happen" (pics or at least documentation). Republicans will hang tough and refuse a further delay or an FBI investigation of any of the charges; they won't call Ramirez as a witness (assuming she'd be willing), and they'll declare Kavanaugh exonerated no matter how persuasive Christine Blasey Ford is in Thursday's hearing, or how evasive Kavanaugh is.

They need base voters to be fired up in November, and that won't happen, as I've said in recent days, unless they own the libs. So unless Kavanaugh himself gets cold feet, or unless Avenatti somehow produces credible witnesses to a gang rape, this process won't be derailed.

The key will be winning the spin war. They have to dominate the media with the message that Democrats and Blasey Ford didn't lay a glove on Kavanaugh. If he doesn't blurt out out a Perry Mason-style confession, they'll claim vindication no matter what happens.

They could ask Kavanaugh to withdraw, then run on a stab-in-the-back message in November -- we have to defeat every possible Democrat because they're evil liars who fabricate stories in order to destroy their enemies. But they believe that failure at lib-owning will be fatal to them in November. So they're going to press on, and in the end I still think they'll win.

If Trump's "grab them by the p*ssy" tape didn't stop the GOP, this won't either.  Midterm turnout is still going to be dismal because for all the shouting and hashtags and articles and blog posts, Americans have to go vote, and they won't.

Especially Americans younger than myself.

It's been too late to stop Kavanaugh since November 7, 2016.