Senate has become factory of suspicion and contempt

Michael Gerson

This is the cost when institutions have lost public trust.

The United States Senate is supposed to be a deliberative body, protected by extended terms from contracting the political fevers of the day. This role assumes a certain level of competence, collegiality and goodwill among its members.

None of which has been displayed by the lead Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein. She knew about Christine Blasey Ford’s charges against Brett Kavanaugh for nearly two months before they started leaking to the press. This method of revelation blindsided Feinstein’s colleagues, denied the nominee a proper chance to confront the accusation, and launched an important public issue under a partisan cloud. So Feinstein is guilty of governing malpractice and has encouraged suspicion and contempt, especially among conservatives, for the institution.

How about the Judiciary Committee more broadly? This is the place where serious-minded investigations of judicial qualifications are supposed to take place. It should be the forum where matters such as the charges against Kavanaugh are considered. And Chairman Chuck Grassley’s offer to hear committee testimony by Ford, in public or private, was not unreasonable.

But Democrats view the Republican-controlled Judiciary Committee as highly politicized — and for an understandable reason. The most recent Supreme Court nominee chosen by a Democrat, Merrick Garland, was defeated and mistreated by delaying his vote beyond President Obama’s term in office. There was no credible explanation for doing this — except that the ideological stakes were high and Republicans had the ability to impose their will. It was a raw and effective exercise of power, but it had the cost of leaving a bad partisan taste in senatorial mouths.

Over the last few years Republicans have demonstrated an undeniable ruthlessness in the Supreme Court nomination process, encouraging progressive suspicion and contempt.

So how about the FBI?

It, at least, should be a respected, trusted arbiter in American life. Why not take the job of investigation away from elected representatives and give it to career professionals?

But who could have possibly predicted the bureau’s reputational roller coaster over the last few years? First, a clownish intervention in the last days of a presidential election that might have helped elect Donald Trump. Then revelations about politicized agents within the FBI who hated Trump. Then almost daily attacks on the bureau by the president of the United States.

Out of all this, two things strike me as clear.

First, as it stands, the facts are in Kavanaugh’s favor. The charge against him is vague, uncorroborated and completely inconsistent with virtually all other accounts of Kavanaugh’s character.

Second, an accusation of attempted rape can’t be allowed to hang in the air without a more serious investigation. In matters of such cruelty and lasting damage, there is no exemption for youth and inexperience.

Republicans should go the extra mile to examine the Ford accusation. But not an extra marathon. The FBI retains some shred of moral standing. It should be instructed by the president to conduct an investigation, in a limited amount of time, with a narrow remit: to see if there are any other witnesses or contemporaneous evidence that would make Ford’s claim seem likely. If not, Kavanaugh should be quickly confirmed.