Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation was supposed to be easy, but instead, Senate Republicans have announced plans for a public hearing with Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused him of sexual assault, testifying. That hearing will be Monday, and, a “senior Republican official close to the process” told Axios, “gives the judge the opportunity to clear his name. But there is no room for error from members on the committee.”
Now that Kavanaugh’s confirmation process is drawing more attention, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appears to be trying to make the whole thing look clean and aboveboard, including an obviously planted story in Politico about how a “calm,” “even-keeled” McConnell held a long strategy meeting and “committed to following Senate and committee rules, noticing a hearing for Ford and Kavanaugh to appear in a week, rather than trying to change precedent and rush a hearing this week.” When Kavanaugh wasn’t dominating the headlines, McConnell and Senate Republicans were making sure that most of his official papers stayed hidden and waved off repeated perjury as no big thing, but suddenly they’re all about the official process.
One person who hasn’t dived in to try to clear Kavanaugh’s name is Donald Trump, who aides have managed to convince not to tweet or rant or do anything beyond giving some generally positive quotes about Kavanaugh and calling for a “complete process.” It’s not how Trump responds when he himself is accused of sexual assault, to say the least, but, the Washington Post reports, “according to a presidential adviser, Trump has not immediately viewed the spotlight on Kavanaugh’s alleged conduct as an attack on himself by extension and therefore has not lashed out.”
Kavanaugh’s confirmation was supposed to be easy: Republicans were going to take their slim Senate majority and elimination of the Supreme Court filibuster and ram things through, covering up the bulk of Kavanaugh’s record from his time in government, including the George W. Bush White House. Easy peasy, if you have no ethics or integrity. Christine Blasey Ford has very courageously thrown a wrench into that. But that doesn’t mean Republicans are backing down—just that they’re trying to get the same result without looking too bad doing it.
This is (one of the reasons) why we need to take back the Senate. Can you give $3 to help win Nevada and Texas?