This will be short & sweet for a change — many of my diaries are admittedly long winded.
Watching Maddow Tonight, I saw her read sections of the transcript of a phone call between (apparently) GOP Judiciary Staff and Brett Kavanaugh regarding the newest allegation.
For those who don’t know, an anonymous letter was sent to Republican Senator Cory Gardner of CO who forwarded to the Judiciary Committee. The letter is short, and from the mother of one of the witnesses to a 1998 event in DC. Basically this woman’s daughter and three of her friends, one of whom was dating Kavanaugh had dinner at a DC establishment. All of them drank, perhaps too much although that’s not clear. The letter goes on to say that as they left Kavanaugh shoved the woman he’d been seeing up against a wall in a sexually aggressive way. The woman who’d been groped called her daughter on Sept. 21, the day before the letter writer sent her note to Gardner to ask what to do.
So we have an anonymous allegation.
At a glance one might think “What can be done with this? Clearly, since this time the allegation came through a GOP Senator from one of his constituents they decided not to completely blow it off. So they called Kavanaugh for a little chat. Maddow went through the heart of the questions, and Kavanaugh (predictably) said nothing like that ever happened, and given the letter was anonymous and didn’t even include a description of the alleged victim the back & forth had a “nothing to this but let’s go through the motions feel to it.
Again, it’s an anonymous allegation. And the GOP of course has a “Well, how can we possibly do anything with this? How can Kavanaugh possible be expected to respond to an accusation with so little detail?
As I said it’s not what he was asked that is bugging the hell out of me. It’s what was NOT asked.
Specifically:
We at least have a broad timeline — 1998. Please give us the names of women you dated during that year so we can follow up with them.
THERE is your starting point, the answer to the question of “What can we possibly do with this allegation!
I can think of plenty of follow ups but I said I’d keep this short. However, it doesn’t take a seasoned investigator (full disclosure I do actually have training & experience in investigations) to figure out a good starting point. And if the investigator perceives any evasiveness (one huge reason this SHOULD have happened face to face instead of over the phone btw) then guess what? It means more investigation is needed.
Perhaps even the resources of an organization with extensive training and experience in investigations, who know how to find threads and start pulling on them. As in the Federal Bureau of INVESTIGATION!
However, as we all know the GOP is doing everything they possibly can to keep the FBI as far from this as possible. And that sure as hell includes asking questions that might lead to them having to create yet another ridiculous excuse about why FBI involvement was necessary.