Republicans Don't Want to Know the Truth About Kavanaugh

[babylonsister]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/kavanaugh-ford-mark-judge/571540/

Republicans Don't Want to Know the Truth About Kavanaugh
The conspicuous absence of Mark Judge, the only other witness to an alleged assault committed by Brett Kavanaugh, reveals a Senate hearing held in bad faith.
12:51 PM ET
Adam Serwer
Staff writer at The Atlantic
Pool / Reuters


The strongest evidence that Senate Republicans want to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the nation’s highest court, regardless of what he may have done, was the conspicuous absence of Mark Judge from the hearing they held on Thursday.

Christine Blasey Ford, who testified under oath before the Senate on Thursday that Kavanaugh attempted to rape her while they were both teenagers, has identified Judge, a conservative writer and childhood friend and classmate of Kavanaugh’s at at the tony D.C.-area Georgetown Prep private school, as the only other person present in the room. Yet the Republican-controlled Judiciary Committee has not forced Judge to appear, nor has it said it will allow the other two women, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, to publicly testify. Instead, Judge—whose initial conditional denial, that he does not “recall” the incident, left open the possibility that it took place—remains holed up at a beach house in Delaware. Although they did not call Judge to appear, Senate Republicans did go through the effort to hire Rachel Mitchell, an Arizona sex-crimes prosecutor, to cast doubt on Ford’s credibility while avoiding the spectacle of a panel of male Senators badgering a sexual-assault survivor.

snip//

Yet Republicans have not forced Judge to testify about what happened. What makes that so strange is that Judge could conceivably exonerate Kavanaugh, providing proof that the assault never happened, or that neither he nor Kavanaugh was present, as Kavanaugh claims. There were, according to Ford, three people in the room—and yet the Senate decided to hear from only two of them. Judge remains in hiding in Delaware, while Ford bares her soul to the world.

The entirety of the Kavanaugh nomination has been a parade of egregious bad faith. People who called for black athletes to be fired for protesting unjustified police killings have suddenly become concerned about due process. Those who supported a candidate who wanted to ban Muslims have warned against painting men with a broad brush. The president who called for five innocent teenagers to be executed for a crime they didn’t commit has decried false accusations. Those who chanted “lock her up” for more than two years have rediscovered the principle that people are innocent until proven guilty.

But ultimately, the sanction that Kavanaugh faces is not death, imprisonment, or even removal from the bench, but simply not being elevated to the nation’s highest court. Imagine how different the country would be if Kavanaugh’s defenders could extend their empathy for him to the average American who comes in contact with the criminal-justice system.

Perhaps Republicans on the committee simply do not want to know whether Kavanaugh attempted to rape Ford. Less charitably, it’s possible that some find Ford’s testimony credible, and they are afraid truthful testimony from Judge will bolster her account; they want to make Kavanaugh a Supreme Court justice, with the power to shape the lives of hundreds of millions of women, regardless of whether he is guilty.

Having elevated a man credibly accused of sexual assault to the White House, the Republican Party is attempting to place another on the nation’s highest court. Refusing to even attempt to uncover the truth will not change that.

[stopbush]

1. They know the truth. They don't care.

In fact, a sizable percentage of them - men and women - admire Kavanaugh’s lechery. It’s what makes Republican men, men.

[beachbum bob]

2. its about covering up the truth and facts, kavanaugh is a poison pill for the supreme court

he is a poison pill for judgeship he current holds. Hope to see him in jail in maryland in the future