Republicans keep telling us they want a fair and open-minded hearing on Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, and it’s just so terrible that Ford won’t subject herself to doing it completely on their terms with no FBI investigation. And then …
… ahead of a rally in Las Vegas on Thursday night, the president told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview in reference to Ford's accusation, "Why didn’t someone call the FBI 36 years ago?"
Yes, quite the fair hearing they’re teeing up.
But that comment to Hannity was just a preview. Friday morning, Trump took to Twitter. After his usual praise of Kavanaugh’s “impeccable reputation,” Trump claimed that Kavanaugh is “under assault by radical left wing politicians who don’t want to know the answers, they just want to destroy and delay. Facts don’t matter.”
Question: If Democrats “don’t want to know the answers,” why are they the ones calling for an FBI investigation while Trump and Republicans refuse to allow it?
Nearly 20 minutes later, Trump came back for more, tweeting that “I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!”
As if she had not already explained why she hid the attack from her parents. As if we don’t know that many, many teenage girls who are assaulted keep it secret, whether because they (wrongly) blame themselves or (rightly) believe other people will blame and revile them. This may be a new frontier in disgusting from the White House and Senate Republicans, because this tweet casts doubt on so many sexual assault survivors, pushes ignorance on so much of what we know about how sexual assault works to victimize people and how it remains so ubiquitous. This isn’t just hateful to Christine Blasey Ford, it’s hateful to every woman who’s been assaulted or harassed and has stayed silent out of fear. Every woman who has years later come forward to say #MeToo knows what this is about.