Quote:On Monday night, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh said in a nationally televised interview that in his younger years, he was focused on sports, academics and "service projects." But it was his comments about drinking that rankled some Yale University classmates, prompting them to speak out for the first time. Liz Swisher, who described herself as a friend of Kavanaugh in college, said she was shocked that - in an interview focused largely on his high school years and allegations of sexual misconduct - he strongly denied drinking to the point of blacking out. "Brett was a sloppy drunk, and I know because I drank with him. I watched him drink more than a lot of people. He'd end up slurring his words, stumbling," said Swisher, a Democrat and chief of the gynecologic oncology division at the University of Washington School of Medicine. "There's no medical way I can say that he was blacked out. . . . But it's not credible for him to say that he has had no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess." 

Lynne Brookes, who like Swisher was a college roommate of one of the two women now accusing Kavanaugh of misconduct, said the nominee's comments on Fox did not match the classmate she remembered. "He's trying to paint himself as some kind of choir boy," said Brookes, a Republican and former pharmaceutical executive who recalled an encounter with a drunken Kavanaugh at a fraternity event. "You can't lie your way onto the Supreme Court, and with that statement out, he's gone too far. It's about the integrity of that institution."

• The right-wingers said they believe Dr. Ford, but why not believe her when she says 100% sure that it was Kavanaugh who assaulted here.
  
• Why didn't Kavanaugh ask for a FBI inquiry (like what happened with Clarence Thomas) to get to the bottom if this, could help clear his name? He refused to answer that question multiple times so the answer was basically no, he doesn't want that.
  
• Instead, he came out accusing the Democrats of a giant conspiracy, payback for the Clinton impeachment (he was on the Ken Star inquiry) and Trump elections. But how is Dr. Ford telling her therapist about this in 2012 and a few friends a few years later part of a giant left-wing conspiracy?
  
• What giant conspiracy? It's the women who accuse Kavanaugh, not the Democrats. They didn't accuse Gorsuch, who was Trump's first nominee and the Democrats were every bit against him as they are against Kavanaugh.
  
• What's the conspiracy anyway that doesn't involve Christine Ford? Either Christine Ford is lying, in which case she could be part of some conspiracy, but if she isn't lying, how is this is conspiracy???
  
• Why wasn't Mark Judge called in to testify? The letter from his lawyer which is just a few sentences isn't cutting it. Why is he in hiding?
  
• The right-wingers attacked the Democrats in general and Feinstein in particular but she simply kept her promise to Dr. Ford and there were other sources (like some of her friends) that could have ultimately leaked it to the press which forced her to come out.
  
• Republicans can go ahead and confirm Kavanaugh, but they have two choices to do that. Either they don't believe Christine Ford, or they do believe her but it doesn't matter anyway.
  
• Christine Ford has no reason whatsoever to lie. Kavanaugh has every reason to lie.
  
• And Kavanaugh did lie, about little things, his drinking behavior for instance.
  
• And he lied about the meaning of devils triangle and boof, terms he used in his yearbook
  
• Given his hard drinking behavior it's much more likely that he doesn't remember (also because the event wasn't nearly as traumatic for him as it was for her, obviously) than that Ford doesn't remember.
  
• Kavanaugh seems to have lied about him not watching Ford's testimony. According to the WSJ he did.
  
• We get a Fox News host on the Supreme Court, the same anger, lashing out..
  
• Republicans reject effort to subpoena Mark Judge
  
• All the times that Dr. Ford and Brett Kavanaugh dogged a question in their testimonies (Ford zero, Kavanaugh, look for yourself)..
  

• A week is pretty short.
  
• Mark Judge will, in all likelihood, not incriminate himself and deny that he remembers anything.
  
• But there are some interesting differences in the image Kavanaugh painted of himself and his real persona at that time.
  
• And then there are these other two accusers.
  

Quote:On Saturday morning, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) responded to news that the FBI will investigate sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh by calling for an investigation of Democrats — in particular, whoever was responsible for leaking a letter written by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford detailing her story of being assaulted by Kavanaugh. Echoing the evidence-free conspiratorial language Kavanaugh used during Thursday’s hearing about the origins of Ford’s accusation, Cassidy suggested some sort of Democratic plot is at work.

“This is part of a broader Democratic strategy to coordinate, and in that coordination, to seek to delay,” Cassidy said on Fox & Friends. “How many more charges can be brought out to smear this man, to create legitimate doubts in the minds of some of the American public?””

• Was she conspiring in 2012 when she told her therapist?
  
• Was she conspiring in subsequent years when she told some friends, her husband?
  
• Does it make her allegations any less credible?
  

Quote:Speaking during a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on Friday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) pointed out one specific way in which an FBI investigation could get to the bottom of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Republicans continue to claim — without evidence — that an FBI investigation wouldn’t tell the committee anything the members don’t already know.
As Republicans rush to confirm Kavanaugh without first properly investigating serious assault or misconduct claims made by Ford and two other women, Whitehouse noted that an entry in Kavanaugh’s calendar, which he himself submitted for public scrutiny, corroborates key details from Ford’s account of being assaulted 36 years ago.

“Dr. Ford said that Kavanaugh and Judge, and PJ, and at least one other boy were all at a house. Well, we know Kavanaugh was there because it’s his schedule, and here’s Judge and here’s PJ,” Whitehouse began, circling handwritten names on the calendar’s entry for a specific date. “Here are all those three named boys and others at a house together just as she said. She said Kavanaugh and Judge were drunk, and that she had a beer. ‘Skis’ is brewskis. Beer. They were drinking, just as she said.”

“Now I will concede that the two girls aren’t mentioned, but spot me this — if you just sexually assaulted one of the two girls, would you add their names to your calendar? I doubt it,” he continued. “This may — may — be powerful corroborating evidence that the assault happened, that it happened that day, and that it happened in that place. But with no FBI investigation, we can’t tell.”

At another point during his testimony on Friday, Whitehouse said he doesn’t buy Kavanaugh’s innocent explanations for suspicious terms he used in his calendar and yearbook. “I don’t believe ‘boof’ is flatulence, I don’t believe a ‘devil’s triangle’ is a drinking game, and I don’t believe calling yourself a girl’s ‘alumnus’ is being her friend,” he said. On Thursday, Kavanaugh repeatedly refused requests from Democratic members of the committee to request an FBI investigation into allegations he claims are false.

Quote:Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh made multiple false statements during his testimony on Thursday, ranging from incorrectly stating the legal drinking age in Maryland, to false claims about messages written in his yearbook, to mischaracterizing sworn statements from attendees at the party where he allegedly assaulted Christine Blasey Ford. To explain Kavanaugh's mendacity, Shamus Khan, the chair of the sociology department at Columbia University, has written an op-ed for the Washington Post in which he explains that the Supreme Court nominee was raised from an early age to believe that rules don't apply to him. In particular, he said that the institutions where Kavanaugh was educated -- Georgetown Prep, Yale University and Yale Law School -- foster a sense of entitlement that gives them a perceived license to lie.

• His drinking behavior
  
• His characterization of sworn testimonies of witnesses (many didn't remember, rather than being exculpatory as Kavanaugh claims)
  
• His characterization of his yearbook entries.
  
• This article sums up his lies.
  

Quote:The Wall Street Journal on Saturday also reported that the White House’s parameters for the FBI probe didn’t include Swetnick because the White House doesn’t consider her accusations “credible.” According to the NBC News’ report, if the FBI learns of others not on the pre-approved list who can corroborate witness’ accounts, it’s not clear whether agents will be able to reach out to them. That could have important implications for Ford, who alleges Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while in high school, and Ramirez, who claims he exposed himself to her in college.

Kavanaugh has vehemently denied all of the women’s claims against him and appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday to refute Ford. One curious feature of NBC News’ reporting is the way the administration instructed the FBI to handle its work on Judge. Ford alleges he was in the room when Kavanaugh drunkenly pinned her down, tried to take her clothes off, and covered her mouth when she screamed while they were at a party in the 1980s. He’s cooperating with the investigation.

In an attempt to help narrow the time frame of when the alleged incident took place, Ford told the judiciary panel on Thursday that six to eight weeks afterward, she went with her mother to a local Safeway supermarket in Potomac, Maryland and saw Judge, who was working there at the time. According to NBC News, “the FBI cannot ask the supermarket that employed Judge for records verifying when he was employed there.” The FBI reportedly also isn’t able to look into why Kavanaugh’s account of his drinking at Yale differs from what former classmates say. Kavanaguh claims he wasn’t a heavy drinker, others say he was. Both Ford and Ramirez claim he was excessively drunk during the two incidents.

Quote:On Fox News Sunday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to answer whether the White House is limiting the FBI investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. “Has the White House limited in any way who the FBI may talk to?” host Chris Wallace asked her in an interview that aired on Sunday. “And specifically, has the FBI given a list of potential people to talk to that does not include Julie Swetnick, the woman, the third accuser who talked about gang rapes — and also college friends who may contradict Judge Kavanaugh on the issue of heavy drinking?” Sanders did not explicitly answer Wallace’s question about reports that the White House counsel gave a specific witness list to the FBI that did not include Swetnick, who last week said that Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were both involved in sexual assault and gang rapes when they were students at Georgetown Preparatory School in the 1980s.

Quote:The FBI's supplemental background check on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is far more constrained by Republicans and the White House than previously known. Legal experts suggested the restrictions are intended to handicap the investigation and shield Kavanaugh from legal exposure related to sexual-misconduct allegations and a potential perjury charge. "There isn't a finder of fact in the country that would hamstring investigators like this," said one DOJ veteran. "It would be comical if it wasn't so important."

But NBC News and The New York Times reported on Saturday that in addition to those limitations, Republicans and the White House gave the FBI a list of just four witnesses to interview. Investigators have also reportedly not been permitted to scour certain records that could be critical to ascertaining the credibility of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, the first woman to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. The FBI will probe aspects of sexual misconduct allegations made by all three women who have come forward against Kavanaugh, but it does not reportedly plan to directly question the third, Julie Swetnick, about her claims.


The White House counsel Don McGahn, who is in charge of guiding Kavanaugh's confirmation process, is also directing the FBI on the scope of its background check. "That seems like a clear conflict of interest," said Carl Tobias, the Williams Chair in Law at the University of Richmond and an expert on federal judicial selection.

Quote:A man who attended Yale University with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh went on the record on Sunday accusing Kavanaugh of mischaracterizing his alcohol consumption during last week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Chad Ludington in an interview with The New York Times said he saw Kavanaugh "staggering from alcohol consumption" multiple times, describing him as a "belligerent and aggressive" drunk.  "It is truth that is at stake, and I believe that the ability to speak the truth, even when it does not reflect well upon oneself, is a paramount quality we seek in our nation’s most powerful judges,” Ludington said in a statement, according to the Times.

The Times noted Ludington has made small political contributions to Democrats over the years. Ludington said Kavanaugh during the hearing downplayed the "degree and frequency" of his drinking. He told the Times that the FBI has asked him to share his story at the bureau's Raleigh, N.C., office on Monday. It is unclear if his testimony will play a role in the weeklong FBI investigation into allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh, the Times reported.  Several other classmates in recent days have accused Kavanaugh of misleading Congress over his alcohol consumption. Former FBI Director James Comey in a Times op-ed published Sunday charged Kavanaugh with "lying" under oath.

Quote:A woman who Dr. Christine Blasey Ford says was at the 1982 party where she was allegedly assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that subtly calls out Kavanaugh for lying to senators when he repeatedly said Ford’s accusation was “refuted” during his testimony on Thursday. The woman — Leland Keyser, a high school friend of Ford’s — sent a letter to the committee via her lawyer that says, “Notably, Ms. Keyser does not refute Dr. Ford’s account, and she has already told the press that she believes Dr. Ford’s account.“

Ford says Keyser was at the party with her, but was not in the room when Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted her. Because Keyser didn’t witness the assault, wasn’t told about it at the time by Ford, and can’t remember being at specific party in question, she’s unable to corroborate Ford’s accusation. But she has said she believes Ford’s claim that Kavanaugh assaulted her. During his testimony on Thursday, however, Kavanaugh dishonestly seized upon the fact Keyser can’t corroborate Ford to claim Ford’s accusation is “refuted.”