RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/metoo-becomes-a-political-ploy-1537915920

Pity Lady Justice; she’s had a rough couple of weeks. On “State of the Union” Sunday, CNN’s Jake Tapper tossed Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii what should have been a grapefruit: “Doesn’t Kavanaugh have the same presumption of innocence as anyone else in America?” Ms. Hirono responded: “I put his denial in the context of everything that I know about him in terms of how he approaches cases.” Conservative jurists in America have been put on notice: They are to forfeit their most basic rights as punishment for their judicial philosophy.

In the national circus that is the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing, sexual assault is very much beside the point. Christine Blasey Ford claims that 36 years ago she suffered an attempt at the most terrifying act of brutality a woman can live through. But in the hands of Senate Democrats, this is one more bit of materiel flung at the other side. Ms. Ford is merely the expedient means to a desirable end.

I have no idea what if anything happened to Ms. Ford. (Is it necessary to say this?) I have no idea whether she is more credible than Leland Keyser, whom Ms. Ford places at the party, though Ms. Keyser has no memory of it and says she’s never met Brett Kavanaugh. Neither do any of the senators, including Dianne Feinstein, who learned of the accusation and withheld it from her Republican colleagues and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for six weeks, knowing as every good gunslinger must, that if you’ve only got one bullet left, you don’t let it go to waste.

Imagine if we treated murder this way. Imagine if a woman had written to Mrs. Feinstein alleging that the man who was about to be appointed to the Supreme Court had murdered her brother 36 years ago. What would we say of a senator who failed to turn this evidence over immediately to the authorities? That the question is so easily answered indicates how much less seriously we already take crimes of sexual violence.

Mrs. Feinstein was elected in 1992, the year after Justice Clarence Thomas’s appointment. When he was accused, we were told the woman is always right. Why else would Anita Hill have brought these claims? A few years later, when the accused was Bill Clinton, elite opinion cried we shouldn’t rush to believe the accuser. He was a good feminist—and Paula Jones, not nearly our sort of girl. In both cases, we knew that the point was not any of the accusations. It was to shelter powerful men with views we liked or punish men with views we didn’t.

Then came #MeToo. For a moment, it seemed everything might change. Public opinion was on the side, not of all women exactly, but of those women with credible, corroborated claims who were willing to name powerful men—even those men with the right political allegiances. In this light, Bill O’Reilly and Harvey Weinstein seemed more alike than different; they met the same disgrace not for their political beliefs but for behavior that Americans of every political stripe should want to stop. For the first time in years, even Bill Clinton seemed less a gift to women than a Trojan Horse.

But now we’re back to our cheap tricks, using sexual assault as a political ploy. If Judge Kavanaugh were liberal, Sen. Hirono makes clear, she would give him the benefit of the doubt. If he adjudicates like a conservative, that’s evidence of rape. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.weeklystandard.com/adam-j-white/brett-kavanaugh-christine-blasey-ford-and-the-senates-burden-of-proof
Understanding where the burden of proof really rests.

As the Senate considers Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation that Judge Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 30 years ago, senators find themselves asking a basic question familiar to all lawyers: Who bears the burden of proof—the accuser or the accused?

But the greater burden is the one borne by the Senate itself, which now must come to a decision on Kavanaugh’s nomination, and do so in the manner that will best promote transparency and fact-finding in this nomination and all future nominations.

The “burden of proof” issue is the crux of the debate surrounding Dr. Ford’s accusations against Judge Kavanaugh precisely because she has produced no evidence to support her accusations against him. She has no physical evidence, though that is unsurprising given that she is alleging a three-decades-old-crime. More surprising, and more disconcerting, is the fact that the direct witnesses that she identified disclaim any knowledge of the crime she says they were present for; the fact that her therapist’s notes of her statements neither name Kavanaugh nor square with her other specific allegations; and the fact that Senator Feinstein herself did not pursue the allegations until after the regular confirmation hearings had ended and Kavanaugh was poised for a successful vote.

In sum, Dr. Ford’s accusation against Kavanaugh is unsupported save for the accusation itself, and those who say that she told them about Kavanaugh in the last handful of years, three decades after the alleged incident. And Kavanaugh, for his part, denies the accusation categorically—he denies assaulting her at any time or any place, including at the unspecified house party in an unknown house during an unknown year.

So is that enough for the senators to decide to vote for Kavanaugh, Ford’s accusation notwithstanding? Judge Kavanaugh’s supporters think so, pointing to the traditional criminal-law standard of presuming the defendant’s innocence and requiring the prosecutor to prove otherwise.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/kavanaugh-confirmation-hearings-not-a-trial

Kavanaugh’s hearing has become a farce.

I’ve never thought the big Ford–Kavanaugh hearing scheduled for Thursday would actually happen. Maybe I’ll be proved wrong, but I’ve never believed Christine Blasey Ford wants to testify. This hearing is not going to settle the issue of what, if anything, happened 36 years ago — which, as I’ve noted, is why there is no point in having the hearing.

Senator Chuck Grassley, the Judiciary Committee chairman, should just invite affidavits from the witnesses and call it a day. Democrats, in any event, would rather have the specter of Ford’s testimony than the real thing, given that the latter will highlight: (a) her inability to recall and relate rudimentary details, (b) the fact that she did not utter a word about the alleged sexual assault for 30 years, (c) the discrepancies between her current version of events and the notes of what she told her therapist, and (d) the fact that the other witnesses she has identified do not corroborate her story. Moreover, now that Republicans have reportedly retained an experienced female litigator to conduct the questioning, there is no longer the prospect of video clips featuring Ford being grilled by old white guys — grist for what Democrats hoped would be their “War on Women 2.0” campaign ads.

Ford’s legal team continues to add new demands. The latest is a push to have two “trauma experts” and Ford’s polygrapher testify. The purpose of these outlandish proposals is likely to prompt denials that would allow Ford to bow out of the hearing, blaming purported GOP intransigence and insensitivity.

This underscores that the point of the hearing is being lost.