Some people seem to like being lied to. In fact, there are some people who’d rather be lied to by a man than told the truth by a woman. Let’s hope President Trump isn’t one of them. If Judge Brett Kavanaugh had any claim to credibility going in, at yesterday’s hearing, he has none coming out.
As I wrote day before yesterday,
The nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court should not be a partisan divide. At this point, there is more than enough reason to go back to the drawing board. The judge should thank his lucky stars for his current job. He and the White House should withdraw his name from consideration. President Trump should pick a nominee who does not have a track record of alcohol trouble.
It’s not only the series of misstatements from Judge Kavanaugh–claiming over and over again that people exonerated him when they didn’t, claiming that his drinking and drunkenness were less than they were in truth, claiming that he has always treated women with respect. Some of his own friends including Republican friends have spoken to the contrary. Lynne Brookes spoke on Cuomo Prime Time last night. She herself saw Kavanaugh and friend Chris Dudley decide to embarrass a young woman–by breaking into a room where she had gone with her date–and they did so.
A dead giveaway would be that calendar that Judge Kavanaugh himself offered.
MITCHELL: Dr. Ford described a small gathering of people at a suburban Maryland home in the summer of 1982. She said that Mark Judge, P.J. Smyth and Leland Ingham also were present, as well as an unknown male, and that the people were drinking to varying degrees. Were you ever at a gathering that fits that description?
KAVANAUGH: No, as I’ve said in my opening statements — opening statement.
To her credit, the questioner, Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, followed up with Kavanaugh as she had followed up with Ford:
MITCHELL: I want to talk about your calendars. You submitted to the committee copies of the handwritten calendars that you’ve talked about for the months of May, June, July and August of 1982. Do you have them in front of you?
KAVANAUGH: I do.
MITCHELL: Did you create these calendars, in the sense of all the handwriting that’s on them?
KAVANAUGH: Yes.
MITCHELL: OK. Is it exclusively your handwriting?
KAVANAUGH: Yes.
MITCHELL: When did you make these entries?
KAVANAUGH: In nine — in 1982.
MITCHELL: Has anything changed — been changed for those since 1982?
KAVANAUGH: No.
MITCHELL: Do these calendars represent your plans for each day, or do they document — in other words, prospectively, or do they document what actually occurred, more like a diary?
This is a series of good questions. Mitchell did no grandstanding. She stuck to evidence and stuck to detail.
KAVANAUGH: They’re both forward-looking and backward-looking, as you can tell by looking at them, because I cross out certain doctor’s appointments that didn’t happen, or one night where I was supposed to lift weights, I crossed that out, because it — I obviously didn’t make it that night. So you can see things that I didn’t do crossed out in retrospect, and also, when I list the specific people who I was with, that is likely backward-looking.
MITCHELL: You explain that you kept these calendars because your father started keeping them in 1978, I believe you said. That’s why you kept them. In other words, you wrote on them. But why did you keep them up until this time?
KAVANAUGH: Well — well, he’s kept them, too, since 1978, so he’s a good role model.
At this point, most unfortunately, Grassley stopped her–at Kavanaugh’s request:
GRASSLEY: Ms. Mitchell, you’ll have to stop.
MITCHELL: Oh, I’m sorry.
GRASSLEY: Judge Kavanaugh has asked for a break, so we’ll take a 15-minute break.
(RECESS)
Eventually, after Leahy’s turn questioning Kavanaugh, Rachel Mitchell was allowed to resume.
GRASSLEY: Ms. Mitchell?
MITCHELL: Judge, do you still have your calendar — calendars there?
KAVANAUGH: I do.
MITCHELL: I would like you to look at the July 1st entry.
KAVANAUGH: Yes.
MITCHELL: The entry says — and I quote — “Go to Timmy’s (ph) for skis (ph) with Judge (ph), Tom (ph), P.J. (ph), Bernie (ph) and Squee (ph)”?
KAVANAUGH: Squee. That’s a nick…
MITCHELL: What does…
KAVANAUGH: … that’s a nickname.
MITCHELL: OK. To what does this refer, and to whom?
KAVANAUGH: So first, says “Tobin’s (ph) house workout”. So that’s one of the football workouts that we would have — that Dr. (inaudible) would run for guys on the football team during the summer.
So we would be there — that’s usually 6:00 to 8:00 or so, kind of — until near dark. And then it looks like we went over to Timmy’s — you want to know their last names too? I’m happy to do it.
MITCHELL: If you could just identify, is — is “Judge,” Mark Judge?
KAVANAUGH: It is.
MITCHELL: And is “P.J.,” P.J. Smith?
KAVANAUGH: It is.
So — all right. It’s Tim Gaudette (ph), Mark Judge, Tom Caine (ph), P.J. Smith, Bernie McCarthy (ph), Chris Garrett (ph).
MITCHELL: Chris Garrett is Squee?
KAVANAUGH: He is.
MITCHELL: Did you in your calendar routinely document social gatherings like house parties or gatherings of friends in your calendar?
KAVANAUGH: Yes. It — it certainly appears that way, that’s what I was doing in the summer of 1982. And you can see that reflected on several of the — several of the entries.
There was more, in the testimony to Mitchell and in the calendar itself, more than enough to rebut Kavanaugh’s claims that he has “never” been to such a gathering as that testified to by Dr. Ford. Unfortunately, Mitchell’s time was up. The calendar had not run out, but the honest questioning had. Once Senator Lindsey Graham launched into his bogus diatribe, the day for fact-finding was over.
At least, it was over in the hearing room. Others have confirmed through Mark Judge’s own book that he did indeed work at the nearby Safeway that summer, the summer of 1982.
