The first challenge comes with Dr. Ford’s recollection of when the incident happened.
Her initial account to WaPo suggested it had happened in her “late teens.” But Kavanaugh was at Yale then. Her testimony then changed to 1982, contradicting text messages and therapist notes.
The change with regard to when she first named Kavanaugh as her attacker is significant because her legal team has pointed to therapist notes as evidence to support her charges. But the therapist notes don’t name Kavanaugh and have still not been submitted to the Senate.
Recent polls suggest that some find Judge Kavanaugh to not be trustworthy. If you take a look at the media coverage from *just one night* you might see part of the reason why.
Hint: it has very little to do with Brett Kavanaugh’s trustworthiness.
In one night..
(Thread)
The NY Times allowed an anti-Kavanaugh activist who spoke out against him in July (
The next day Democrats raced to microphones to talk about how explosive this was, highlighting that the case against Kavanaugh had just gotten more distant.
It’s a long icy stretch from “questioned in a bar fight” to “guilty of sexual misconduct.”
The AP reports Julie Swetnick “has an extensive history of involvement in legal disputes, including a lawsuit in which an ex-employer accused her of falsifying her college and work history on her job application.”
While many on the left have been eager to ignore Rachel Mitchell’s conclusions, the facts she found and outlined in her report are indisputable, and highlight the challenge of an accusation with no corroborating evidence or witnesses.
Dr. Ford has not offered a consistent account of when the alleged assault happened. The range of years she has offered has varied widely over the last few months.
Dr. Ford has struggled to identify Judge Kavanaugh as her assailant by name, with records showing inconsistencies. The first record of her identifying Kavanaugh by name came around the time his name was prominently covered in the media.
Sen Feinstein did not leak the letter/ the existence of the letter to the intercept— staff for other Democrats on the committee did. These excerpts make that clear
They cared more about stopping Kavanaugh than protecting Dr. Ford’s request for privacy
Senator Feinstein suggested that Dr Ford’s friends must have leaked it the letter.
But Dr. Ford testified that she did not authorize the release of her letter or provide it to anyone outside of Congresswoman Eshoo, Sen Feinstein, and her attorneys.
Articles in Buzzfeed, the New York Times, and the New Yorker (published before Dr Ford told her story of her own accord to the Washington Post) made clear that Dr. Ford’s name, contact information, and existence of accusations had been leaked to the media from Democrat offices.
Who Republicans are? Reminder: It was Senate Democrats who:
☑️ Disregarded accusations for *6 weeks* only to weaponize them at a politically opportune moment
☑️ Ignored Dr. Ford's request for privacy by leaking her name and letter to media
We know the chain of custody for Dr. Ford's letter
The first report that a letter existed surfaced because staffers for Judiciary Committee Democrats complained to media that Senator Feinstein was hiding a letter relevant to the Kavanaugh confirmation.
A Senate Democrat even acknowledged on TV that the leak (of Dr. Ford's allegations and personal information, over her apparent wishes for privacy) likely came from Democrat “folks on committee staff.”