Editorial: Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh came across as less composed than Ford.
Christine Blasey Ford, a Palo Alto professor reluctantly drawn into a Washington maelstrom, was shaken but sure before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, recounting the indelible sound of her assailants’ laughter, deploying her expertise in psychology to explain the nuances of memory, and quantifying her certainty that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her as “100 percent.”
Brett Kavanaugh, a Beltway veteran serving on the nation’s second-highest court, was less composed, delivering much of his testimony in a raised voice, frequently verging on tears, and all but blaming a leftwing conspiracy for the charges. If it’s possible to deny something more than 100 percent, he did, saying, “I swear today under oath, before the Senate and the nation, before my family and God, I am innocent of this charge.”
Beyond the remarkable contrast in tone and temperament, the hearing came down to the he-said-she-said contrived by the Senate majority. It was thanks to Kavanaugh’s Republican backers that the hearing followed no FBI investigation, featured none of the numerous witnesses who might corroborate or refute Ford’s or other accusers’ charges, and unfolded on the eve of a scheduled vote to confirm the nominee.
In fact, if the majority harbored any zeal to investigate the matter, it was directed at discrediting the accusation. In an effort to avoid a reprise of the committee’s all-male interrogation of Anita Hill in 1991, committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, outsourced the Republicans’ time to an Arizona sex crimes prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell. This created the bizarre spectacle of an alleged victim of a crime facing prosecutorial examination as her would-be inquisitors sat in awkward silence behind her. That prompted Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., to inform Ford, “You are not on trial.”
Mitchell raised questions about Ford’s recollection of such peripheral details as the number of boys and girls at the gathering where she was assaulted. Ford seemed unfazed, explaining at one point that “the level of norepinephrine and the epinephrine in the brain … encodes memories into the hippocampus.”
The prosecutor went further, floating conspiracies about the compensation of her lawyers and even the dread doppelganger theory that Ford was assaulted by someone who looked a lot like Kavanaugh. The resurfacing of that crackpot contention led to Ford’s powerful “100 percent” statement.
Kavanaugh was emotional and cagey by comparison. He tearfully invoked his parents, daughters and friends and angrily defended his right to drink beer. But he repeatedly refused opportunities to welcome additional investigation or testimony and, when asked about the identity of a drunken “Bart O’Kavanaugh” in his friend Mark Judge’s memoir, replied, “You’d have to ask him.” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., replied that he would if the committee had compelled testimony from Judge, Kavanaugh’s alleged accomplice in the assault.
Like the rush that prevented a thorough review of Kavanaugh’s paper trail, Thursday’s hearing was designed to minimize the nominee’s troubles rather than pursue the truth. Yet the judge responded in a manner that raised new questions about his fitness and temperament to serve in a position that requires evenhandedness and equanimity.
Kavanaugh’s performance under pressure was disturbing. The Senate Republicans’ zeal to proceed toward confirmation is outrageous.