RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/brett-kavanaugh-flip-flop-wasnt-on-polygraphs/

Brett Kavanaugh was asked during yesterday’s hearing if he would take a polygraph test. He replied that he would do whatever the Judiciary Committee asked him to, but noted that polygraphs are inadmissible in federal court because they are “unreliable.” That fact is not in dispute, but it generated controversy anyway: A number of journalists and observers pointed to Sack v. Department of Defense, a 2016 case for which Kavanaugh wrote the opinion, as evidence that he had flip-flopped on the issue. Joe Patrice of Above the Law said that Kavanaugh has ruled that “polygraphs can be accepted as gospel,” while the Huffington Post declared that “Brett Kavanaugh Once Said Polygraphs Are A Good Tool.”

Did he? Sack v. DoD was a Freedom of Information Act appeal in which the court considered whether Kathryn Sack, then a Ph.D. student at the University of Virginia, was eligible for reduced fees for FOIA requests she had filed with the DoD. Part of the case involved whether polygraphs are used for by investigators for a law-enforcement purpose. If they were, then information pertaining to polygraphs in the possession of the government could be eligible for a FOIA exemption. As Kavanaugh wrote: “Under Exemption 7(E), the Government must demonstrate (i) that the withheld records or information ‘would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations’ and (ii) that their disclosure would reasonably ‘risk circumvention of the law.’ ”

First, his opinion affirmed that “polygraph examinations serve law enforcement purposes.” Note that this is not a claim that they are a valuable tool. It is a descriptive and factual claim: Though polygraphs are not admissible in court, law-enforcement agencies use them to screen job applicants, witnesses, or criminal defendants. Kavanaugh simply found that the government had submitted adequate statements that it uses them for these purposes.

Second, his opinion found that releasing the information related to polygraph tests that was at issue in the case could risk circumvention of the law. He notes that the reports Sack had asked for “identify deficiencies in law enforcement agencies’ polygraph programs,” and therefore that releasing them could allow people “to subvert polygraph examinations.” Where Kavanaugh is alleged to be calling polygraphs a “good tool” or “gospel,” his opinion actually underlines the fact that polygraphs can be manipulated, which is all we need to know about the credibility of this particular charge.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-brettxit-1538152293

Is it possible that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) treated Christine Blasey Ford even worse than the senator treated Brett Kavanaugh? Thursday’s hearings revealed no corroborating evidence for the claims against Judge Kavanaugh, who has been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. But the hearing did raise new questions about the way Professor Ford’s claims were handled by the lawyers and politicians who allegedly represent her.

As for potential new facts to support the accusations against Judge Kavanaugh, Judiciary committee Democrats didn’t even pretend to be looking for such evidence through much of Thursday’s spectacle. Instead of seeking information from the nominee, a number of his inquisitors spent their time trying to shame him into endorsing a delay in his confirmation process so that unnamed and un-elected government officials could seek such information at some point in the future, never mind senators’ constitutional duty to do the vetting themselves.

Democratic partisans on Twitter were cheering their team’s tactics, but one particularly important undecided voter was clearly not impressed. U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona is a Republican but a constant and sharp critic of the President. Having opted not to run for re-election this fall, Mr. Flake is not subject to the normal political pressures facing his colleagues. Mr. Flake says in a statement today:

When Dr. Ford’s allegations against Judge Kavanaugh surfaced two weeks ago, I insisted that she be allowed to testify before the committee moved to a vote. Yesterday, we heard compelling testimony from Dr. Ford, as well as a persuasive response from Judge Kavanaugh. I wish that I could express the confidence that some of my colleagues have conveyed about what either did or did not happen in the early 1980s, but I left the hearing yesterday with as much doubt as certainty.

What I do know is that our system of justice affords a presumption of innocence to the accused, absent corroborating evidence. That is what binds us to the rule of law. While some may argue that a different standard should apply regarding the Senate’s advice and consent responsibilities, I believe that the constitution’s provisions of fairness and due process apply here as well.

I will vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh.

Speaking of fairness and due process, Mr. Flake might have noted how far Sen. Feinstein strayed from such standards by sitting on Professor Ford’s allegations for weeks and then springing them on Judge Kavanaugh after his confirmation hearings and just before senators were expected to vote. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/flake-demands-one-week-delay-for-fbi-probe-before-kavanaugh-vote/

Huddling with committee Dems before the vote, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) ultimately declared that he would vote to pass Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh out of the Senate Judiciary Committee but would not support a floor vote in the full Senate until the FBI investigates sexual assault allegations against the judge.

Flake originally said in a morning statement that he would vote to support Kavanaugh. “What I do know is that our system of justice affords a presumption of innocence to the accused, absent corroborating evidence. That is what binds us to the rule of law,” he said. “While some may argue that a different standard should apply regarding the Senate’s advice and consent responsibilities, I believe that the constitution’s provisions of fairness and due process apply here as well.”

Then Flake was confronted at the Senate elevator by two survivors of sexual assault: Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher.

“You’re telling me my assault doesn’t matter,” Gallagher told Flake. “You’re letting people who do these things into power. That’s what you’re telling me when you vote for him. Don’t look away from me. Look at me and tell me that it doesn’t matter what happened to me, that you will let people like that go into the highest court of the land and tell everyone what they can do to their bodies.”

“You’re allowing someone who is unwilling to take responsibility for his own actions … you are allowing someone to take responsibility for his own actions to sit in the highest court in the country and to have the role of repairing the harm that has been done in this country to many people,” Archila said.

Flake listened quietly to the pair and thanked the women before excusing himself to get to the hearing. CONTINUE AT SITE

At the hearings yesterday, the GOP senators were even more lavish than the Dems, in their praise of Dr. Christine Ford’s “courage” in confronting the scourge of sexual harassment and being a “voice for all the victims and survivors.” Oh Puleez! Rosa Parks she ain’t.

It was even more sickening than the efforts of the Dems in asking the “gotcha” question intended to floor Brett Kavanaugh. The prize in a long list of contenders including proven liar oily faced Richard Blumenthal, preening Cory Booker, squirming Feinstein, and Harris always rehearsing for 2020, goes to Dick Durbin who tried to pin Kavanaugh down by defying him to demand an FBI investigation from the White House.

The winner by a mile? Senator Lindsay Graham. rsk

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/kavanaughs-testimony-was-his-joseph-n-welch-moment/

Christina Ford’s testimony did not alter, positively or negatively, the facts of her allegations. She still cannot adduce where or when the alleged assault of 36 years prior occurred, or how she arrived at, or departed from, the alleged, but unnamed, location of the assault, or how many people and of which gender were present at the alleged assault. Nor did she name a single witness that could corroborate her narrative. Nor could she refute any of the named witnesses who contradicted her accounts.

The entire purpose of today’s hearing was for the Democrats to call for a lengthy “FBI investigation,” and thereby delay the hearings until after the midterms, excusing Trump-state senators up for reelection from having to vote No on Kavanaugh, while giving time for a likely fifth, sixth, and seventh psychodramatic accuser to step forward, whose lurid falsified allegations take days to refute, but insidiously bleed Kavanaugh by a thousand lies.

It is true that Ford was an empathetic witness in recounting what she seems to believe happened. And the argument of her supporters is that, because she sincerely believes that she was assaulted and that on some occasions 30 or more years after the alleged incident mentioned it to others, therefore her allegations are proven — when in fact raising the allegations 30 years and more later confirms only that she believes her own allegations, not that her allegations as they concerned Judge Kavanaugh are valid.

There was almost no attention paid to the Ramirez and Swetnick accusations — apparently because Democrats concluded that the advantages of trying to prove a Kavanaugh pattern of illegal or improper behavior was far outweighed by the utter lack of credibility by subsequent accusers, who, if they were to appear, would make that embarrassing fact quite clear. There was still no adequate explanation of why Democrats forced Ford to lose her anonymity or why they did not prompt an “FBI Investigation” immediately upon receipt of the allegation by Senator Feinstein.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-kavanaugh-stakes-1538088433

The Ford-Kavanaugh hearing consumed most of Thursday, and unsurprisingly we learned nothing from the spectacle. Christine Ford remains unable to marshal any evidence for her claim of a sexual assault. Brett Kavanaugh continues to deny the charge adamantly and categorically, and with persuasive emotion.

Something enormous nonetheless has shifted over the past weeks of political ambushes, ugly threats and gonzo gang-rape claims. In a Monday interview, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski noted: “We are now in a place where it’s not about whether or not Judge Kavanaugh is qualified.” Truer words were never spoken. Republicans are now voting on something very different and monumental—and they need to be clear on the stakes.

To vote against Judge Kavanaugh is to reject his certain, clear and unequivocal denial that this event ever happened. The logical implication of a “no” vote is that a man with a flawless record of public service lied not only to the public but to his wife, his children and his community. Any Republican who votes against Judge Kavanaugh is implying that he committed perjury in front of the Senate, and should resign or be impeached from his current judicial position, if not charged criminally. As Sen. Lindsey Graham said: “If you vote ‘no,’ you are legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics.”

The stakes go beyond Judge Kavanaugh. A “no” vote now equals public approval of every underhanded tactic deployed by the left in recent weeks. It’s a green light to send coat hangers and rape threats to Sen. Susan Collins and her staff. It is a sanction to the mob that drove Sen. Ted Cruz and his wife out of a restaurant. It is an endorsement of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who kept the charge secret for weeks until she could use it to ambush the nominee with last-minute, unverified claims. It’s approval of the release of confidential committee material (hello, Spartacus), the overthrow of regular Senate order, and Twitter rule. It’s authorization for a now thoroughly unprofessional press corps to continue crafting stories that rest on anonymous accusers and that twist innuendo into gang rapes. A vote against Brett Kavanaugh is a vote for Michael Avenatti. No senator can hide from this reality. There is no muddy middle. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271462/kavanaugh-kicks-away-democrats-political-hit-lloyd-billingsley

“I was pushed onto the bed and Brett got on top of me.” Christine Blasey Ford testified Thursday. “He began running his hands over my body and grinding his hips into me. I yelled, hoping someone downstairs might hear me, and tried to get away from him, but his weight was heavy. Brett groped me and tried to take off my clothes. He had a hard time because he was so drunk, and because I was wearing a one-piece bathing suit under my clothes. I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from screaming. This was what terrified me the most, and has had the most lasting impact on my life. It was hard for me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me. Both Brett and Mark were drunkenly laughing during the attack.” And so on.

Dr. Ford described herself as “a fiercely independent person and I am no one’s pawn.” Yet, since she accused Kavanaugh it has become clear that she is a partisan, activist Democrat. Ford was flanked by attorney Debra Katz, a partisan Democrat who defended Bill Clinton, not the women who accused him, and Michael Bromwich, a POTUS 44 appointee who also served as an attorney for fired FBI boss Andrew McCabe.

In testimony it emerged that Dr. Ford had sent her letter to Dianne Feinstein, not to both Republicans and Democrats on the judiciary committee. That is what one would expect if Ford’s action was simple “civic duty,” as the professor has proclaimed, and not part of an attempt to smear Kavanaugh and block him from the high court.

Ford was well cast as an ingenue and professional victim, clad in blue like Anita Hill, as ranking member Feinstein noted. In effect, the accuser served as her own expert witness, speaking of the brain’s “hippocampus” and explaining “the etiology of PTSD is multifactoral.” Yet despite her ease with psycho-medical jargon, the professor was shaky about her handlers, the polygraph, and many other details. The professor even told the committee she did not know what “exculpatory evidence” is. So at times, as Joseph diGenova predicted, she did “look like the loon she is.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-should-be-angry/

Kavanaugh’s powerful testimony may well end up changing the course of the Supreme Court, and of our politics.

Brett Kavanaugh may have saved his Supreme Court confirmation with one of the most memorable statements in modern congressional history.

After his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, delivered a compelling, sympathetic performance earlier in the day, Kavanaugh entered the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with his chances hanging by a thread. Commentators speculated about how he’d inevitably be dumped by the GOP. Instead, he transformed his situation with a sustained exercise in righteous indignation as forceful and compelling, in its way, as Clarence Thomas’s attack on a “high-tech lynching” that saved his nomination in 1991.

Kavanaugh had been stilted and overly programmed prior to Thursday, including in his initial round of Senate hearings and in an interview with Fox News earlier in the week. But, after days of enduring a process of unprecedented nastiness, Kavanaugh didn’t hold anything back.

In his opening statement, he was personal about the devastating effects of the charges levied against him, both on his reputation and on his family. He was excoriating about how Ford’s allegation was handled by Senate Democrats, who sat on it until the last moment. He scorned the ridiculous charges that have been layered on since, including that he was party to gang rapes. He invoked all he had invested in public service and in his friendships over the years. He expressed regret, as he should, over juvenile references in his high-school yearbook. He acknowledged enjoying beer, as a teenager and still as an adult. And he was angry, very angry, at the Democrats who have attacked his integrity and welcomed any bottom-feeding allegation, including a grotesque smear dredged up publicity-hungry lawyer Michael Avenatti.

His face was distorted in fury, he had trouble composing himself, and at times he wept. This was an incredibly raw performance by the standards of Washington and especially by the standards of Senate confirmation hearings.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/lindsey-graham-says-stop-1538089494

The U.S. Senate is sometimes called “the Club.” No Member in our time more personifies the Club than South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham. On Thursday at the Kavanaugh hearing, he dropped out.

When his turn arrived to question Brett Kavanaugh, Senator Graham instead stared across the long table at the Judiciary Committee’s Democrats and, well, unloaded. He called their tactics against Judge Kavanaugh “the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics.” A moment’s pause and then this: “Boy, do you want power, and I hope you never get it.”

What caused Lindsey Graham to pop?

A phrase rolling through the Kavanaugh confirmation story the past few weeks is character assassination. It is an ugly thing, and most of the time American politics stops short of defeating an opponent solely by tearing him apart personally and then using the damage to his reputation as a pretext to defeat him.

By the midday recess of Thursday’s hearing, that manifestly was the Democrats’ strategy. The hearing made clear that Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation was not going to be corroborated. But the Democrats’ real interest wasn’t Ms. Ford. It was Judge Kavanaugh. The informal standards of the Senate Club were shattered Thursday by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Richard Blumenthal, Mazie Hirono, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris.

One Democratic Senator after another took the allotted time to say Ms. Ford had been the victim of a sexual predator, specifically Judge Kavanaugh. None bothered to say the acts were “alleged.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/confirm-brett-kavanaugh-1538089143

Thursday’s Senate hearing on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination was an embarrassment that should have never happened. Judge Kavanaugh was right to call the confirmation process a “disgrace” in his passionate self-defense, and whatever one thinks of Christine Blasey Ford’s assault accusation, she offered no corroboration or new supporting evidence.

Ms. Ford certainly was a sympathetic witness—by her own admission “terrified” at the start and appearing to be emotionally fragile. Her description of the assault and its impact on her was wrenching. She clearly believes what she says happened to her. Her allegation should have been vetted privately, in confidence, as she said she would have preferred. Instead ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein held it for six weeks and it was leaked—perhaps to cause precisely such a hearing circus.

Yet there is still no confirming evidence beyond her own testimony, and some of what she says has been contradicted. The female friend Ms. Ford says was at the home the night of the assault says she wasn’t there. The number of people she says were there has varied from four to five and perhaps more, but every potential witness she has cited by name says he or she doesn’t recall the party.

She still can’t recall the home where the assault took place, how she got there or how she got home that evening. She has no witnesses who say she told them about the alleged assault at the time—until she first spoke of it at a couples therapy session 30 years later in 2012. Mr. Kavanaugh’s name doesn’t appear in the notes of her therapist.