On Kavanaugh, ‘boofed’ is the new ‘Borked’

Democrats lay yearbook perjury trap for nominee

As the FBI continues its investigation into claims that Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a serial sexual assaulter, it remains doubtful that dispositive or even incriminating new evidence will be uncovered given the declarations submitted on the record by principal witnesses. But that may never have been the real strategy against Kavanaugh. This looks like a perjury trap.

While Kavanaugh believed Democrats were trying to paint him as an extremist, as they did Robert Bork in 1987, they actually were trying to trap Kavanaugh into false statements about terms and conduct from decades earlier. Kavanaugh could achieve immortality in the lexicon of confirmations not as a “Borked” but a “boofed” nominee.

The FBI is investigating the sexual assault allegation by Christine Blasey Ford and an allegation from Deborah Ramirez, who says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party while both were students at Yale. Democratic senators did not seriously question Kavanaugh last week on these allegations. The only substantive focus was on Kavanaugh’s drinking in high school and college, and risqué references in his high school yearbook.

While the Democrats suggested this was meant to bolster Ford’s account of Kavanaugh being almost blacked out with alcohol, it seems implausible given the specificity of the questions. Clearly, the Democrats were trying to establish that Kavanaugh has lied about drinking and sex in his youth.

Kavanaugh was faced with admitting to alcohol abuse and embarrassing sexual terminology or denying such alleged facts under oath. The key moment came when Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse demanded to know the meaning of “boofed,” “Devil’s Triangle” and other terms in Kavanaugh’s yearbook. These terms are references to anal and group sex.

Many of us were unfamiliar with them (honestly, I now realize I led a relatively monastic life), but they are apparently well-known. Kavanaugh’s description of the first as flatulence and the second as a drinking game led to a torrent of ridicule. Despite someone in Congress trying to change the Wikipedia definition of “Devil’s Triangle” to include a drinking game, Kavanaugh is believed by many to have knowingly lied about these terms as well as when he denied that he drank excessively.

It was a curious tactic for the Democrats, who once argued that President Bill Clinton could not be impeached for lying under oath about sex. They now argue that Kavanaugh should be denied confirmation on the basis of lies about drinking or sexual terms.

The fact is that there is no subject matter exception for perjury. A lie about anything counts as a lie. Clinton was rightfully impeached on this basis, and Kavanaugh could be rejected on it. (Full disclosure, I testified during the Clinton impeachment hearings that such perjury would be an impeachable offense.)

Where does that leave us? A college friend, professor Charles Ludington, now says Kavanaugh lied when he denied abusive drinking — that he was a “belligerent and aggressive” drunk in college. Others have also contradicted Kavanaugh. However, Kavanaugh did not deny drinking. Indeed, as now famously mocked by Matt Damon on “Saturday Night Live,” he repeatedly (and rather painfully) said he liked beer. He did not deny ever being drunk.

If the assault allegations are left unproven and Kavanaugh’s testimony on drinking is relatively vague, that leaves his yearbook and the sexual references often exchanged among teenage boys.

Those references in a 17-year-old’s yearbook may become the legal equivalent of the Butterfly Effect (where a butterfly flapping its wings could cause a typhoon far away). They have little to do with any alleged assault or Kavanaugh’s undeniable qualifications as a jurist. The problem is that Kavanaugh had to answer the questions — or refuse to answer as a matter of dignity.

A new political verb is born: to boof, forcing a nominee to choose either degrading or false testimony on marginal issues. Like Bork, boof will be available as a noun, an adjective and an adverb.

If this becomes the standard for future confirmations, we are all boofed.