Smoking gun is full of blanks
THE latest allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh are so thin and implausible, they would make Sabrina Rubin Erdely blush. Erdely was the journalist behind a 2014 Rolling Stone article about a gruesome gang rape at a University of Virginia frat that turned out to be a gigantic hoax. Erdely ended up with egg on her face — and massive court bills for defamation.
Julie Swetnick, who on Wednesday went public as Kavanaugh’s third accuser, deserves to have the Senate look into her allegations of “train”-style highschool gang rapes. But her written statement should give even the most ardent Kavanaugh haters pause. The document is pockmarked with elisions, more notable for what it doesn’t say than what it alleges about President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.
Set aside the fact that Swetnick has retained as her attorney Michael Avenatti, a Democratic political aspirant who chases cameras with all the subtlety of a daytime TV host. Avenatti shared a photo of Swetnick at the same time that he posted her written declaration to his Twitter account. Then he asked his 800,000 followers to respect “her privacy and that of her family.” What a mensch.
In her declaration, Swetnick claims to have attended “well over 10 house parties” in the Washington area, at which Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were also present. What she doesn’t mention is how she wound up at those parties, which took place when she had graduated high school while Kavanaugh was still in high school.
Unlike his first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, Swetnick didn’t attend a sister school of Kavanaugh’s Georgetown Prep high school. And unlike his second accuser, she wasn’t an undergraduate classmate of his at Yale. On the available evidence, it is a mystery how she mingled in the same circles that he occupied. Kavanaugh says he’s never heard of her.
Swetnick says she saw Kavanaugh and Judge drink to excess at these parties and behave crudely toward young women. What she doesn’t mention? The names of any of the women in question. At least Ford named potential witnesses, all of whom said they don’t recall the parties and events in question. Not so Swetnick, whose declaration appears designed to frustrate attempts at corroboration.
Next, Swetnick accuses Kavanaugh of “grinding women” and “shifting girls’ clothing” and “making crude sexual comments.” But again, she doesn’t identify these alleged victims. Was she one of them? She doesn’t say, and Avenatti likewise demurred when pressed by a co-host on ABC’s “The View” as to whether Swetnick herself was victimized — in any way — by Kavanaugh.
Swetnick also claims that she witnessed “this conduct” on at least one other occasion, “during the Summer months in Ocean City, Maryland” and was told that other women in Ocean City witnessed the same. But what “conduct”? By whom? What year? Swetnick doesn’t say.
Then Swetnick writes: “During the years 1981-82” — that is, while she was of majority age and the judge still in high school — “I became aware of efforts by . . . Brett Kavanaugh and others to ‘spike’ the ‘punch’ at house parties I attended with drugs.” Note that she doesn’t claim to have witnessed or seen Kavanaugh drug the booze — only that she “became aware,” somehow.
In the same vein: “I witnessed efforts by . . . Brett Kavanaugh and others to ‘target’ particular girls so they could be taken advantage of.” Which girls and targeted for what purpose, Swetnick doesn’t say.
Then we get to the “train”-rape stuff. To wit, Swetnick alleges that Kavanaugh was “waiting outside a room” where a gang rape supposedly took place, where boys had presumably lined up to take advantage of a young woman. But she doesn’t say that she witnessed the gang rape or that she witnessed the future judge engage in the gang rape. And once more, she doesn’t list any alleged victims.
Finally, Swetnick claims that “in approximately 1982,” she became a victim of these gang rapes. Forgive me for sounding like a broken record, but again: She doesn’t allege that Kavanaugh was one of her group rapists or even that he was aware that she was being raped — only that he was “present.”
Without more, this is so much soupy bosh. I can’t be the only one who thinks that the more allegations pile up against Brett Kavanaugh, the less credible they all seem.