Edge over Kavanaugh: Ford’s demeanor

A bloodbath for nominee, Trump and GOP senators

Christine Blasey Ford's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee has left Judge Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination on life support. From the moment she started to speak, this was a bloodbath for Kavanaugh, the White House and the 11 Republican members of the committee. In my 30 years as a prosecutor and lawyer, I have never seen a more credible witness than Professor Ford. It's not simply that the key details of her account hung together and that she provided the types of rich particulars that truthful witnesses provide, such as the second front door she insisted on in her home out of residual fear from the attack. Or that her account was supported by pre-nominaton statements from third parties (such as her therapist) and her own polygraph. Or that it comports with the key documentary evidence we do have. It was, in a word, Ford's demeanor. The whole reason for the jury system is our recognition that there is no substitute for seeing witnesses tell their stories in person. We are innately skilled at judging their veracity in a live setting. Thursday's hearing was a teaching moment in that principle. Ford was clear-eyed and aiming to please in response to questions from all sides. She was fully human and seemingly ingenuous. She was not angry or overwrought. She was nervous — “terrified” in her words — but determined. She was moved to the point of tears when senators offered testaments to her courage. She was, more than anything, completely resolute on the key detail that her attacker was Kavanaugh. The GOP senators' strategy of cowering in the background while leaving the questioning to sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell backfired. She understandably applied a kid-gloves approach while trying to chip away at Ford's version of the event. But it was clear she was a hired hand for the silent Republican majority and was trying to catch Ford in a minor inconsistency. The effort fell flat, in part because Chairman Charles Grassley insisted on a five-minute clock. Mitchell pursued ineffective cavils about Ford's fear of flying or who paid for her polygraph; Democrats focused on Ford's courage, the need for a more comprehensive investigation, common reactions of sexual assault victims, the hearing as a job interview for Kavanaugh and not a crucible for Ford's veracity. The GOP senators who spoke outside the room obviously felt they had been mowed down by a #MeToo freight train. Their dyspepsia came across as out of touch. It was also ironic given the raw political manipulation by Republicans, with their one-vote Senate majority, to try to push Kavanaugh's nomination through without the broader investigation the situation screams for. Kavanaugh and his defenders had opted to take an absolutist stance: that Ford's claim was 100 percent fabricated, and that he had been a choir boy in high school and beyond. Hemmed in by these prior accounts, Kavanaugh once again denied all. He seemed more interested in defending his savaged character than salvaging the nomination. Like Ford, Kavanaugh was emotional and repeatedly moved to tears. But mostly he was hotheaded and angry, irate about the sour turn his nomination had taken. When asked why he did not agree to an immediate FBI investigation, he pounded the table and fairly screamed that he wanted to come to the committee the next day. Ford's story was no less harrowing, but she came across as trying to be helpful while he seemed personally indignant — transformed into the entitled angry figure that his opponents have suggested. Above all, the hearing showcased the rawness and human devastation of the process, on both Ford and Kavanaugh. The questioning left Kavanaugh's supporters with only the narrowest channel of defense: that his very anger was testament to his sincerity, and created a standoff that could only be resolved by giving him the benefit of the doubt. But after Ford's sterling turn in the chair, the odds that this gambit would reassure all 51 Senate Republicans looked remote.