Legal/scotus thread

bravesnumberone said:
Disgraceful. It does no good to walk out. They owe it to the country to call this for the sham it is.
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Honestly, this is the biggest political circus I've seen in years. There's no moral high ground at this point. The Dem's held these accusations back for the purpose to unleashing them right at the end when they could get the biggest political gain. The Republicans are now trying to clear the air enough to ram Kavanaugh through.

The idea that any one party in this "owe it to the country to call this for the sham it is" is a bit silly. The Dems have pulled every dirty trick they could to torpedo Kavanaugh and the Republicans are willing to respond in kind to get him through.

This is not about the sexual harassment accusations. This is a game of political chess with two parties moving pieces and the stakes being control of the SCOTUS.
 
striker42 said:
Honestly, this is the biggest political circus I've seen in years. There's no moral high ground at this point. The Dem's held these accusations back for the purpose to unleashing them right at the end when they could get the biggest political gain.
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I believe this conspiracy theory has been debunked several times.
 
Runnin said:
I believe this conspiracy theory has been debunked several times.
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It's not a conspiracy theory and it's not been debunked, there have just been attempts at excuses. Look at what a politician does in the context of how they stand to get the most political gain and you'll never be surprised.

They had these allegations back in July. They went through the entire process without a peep about them. At the time when the Dems stood to gain the most, the accusation is dropped. The explanation was that they were protecting this woman's privacy, working with her about getting an attorney, etc. If you believe that a lifetime politician with the fate of the SCOTUS in the balance would sit on her hands simply to respect a woman's privacy, I can't help you. Feinstein and her crew played this card perfectly.

You can look at the prosecutor used by the Republicans yesterday in the same way. The Republicans would say they hired this woman to ensure someone who has experience interviewing trauma victims and finding the truth in such cases would be conducting the questioning. That this would help get to the truth while also respecting the witness. That's a bunch of crap.

The Republicans brought that woman in so that it wouldn't be 11 old white guys grilling a woman about sexual assault. They knew that the questioning wouldn't lead anywhere. They just wanted to avoid bad optics. Once Kavanaugh was brought in the prosecutor was tossed aside fairly quickly.
 
If nothing else, please don’t tell me the Republican Party is going to get away with pretending to believe/support Ford while also defending Kavanaugh.
 
striker42 said:
It's not a conspiracy theory and it's not been debunked, there have just been attempts at excuses. Look at what a politician does in the context of how they stand to get the most political gain and you'll never be surprised.

They had these allegations back in July. They went through the entire process without a peep about them. At the time when the Dems stood to gain the most, the accusation is dropped. The explanation was that they were protecting this woman's privacy, working with her about getting an attorney, etc. If you believe that a lifetime politician with the fate of the SCOTUS in the balance would sit on her hands simply to respect a woman's privacy, I can't help you. Feinstein and her crew played this card perfectly.

You can look at the prosecutor used by the Republicans yesterday in the same way. The Republicans would say they hired this woman to ensure someone who has experience interviewing trauma victims and finding the truth in such cases would be conducting the questioning. That this would help get to the truth while also respecting the witness. That's a bunch of crap.

The Republicans brought that woman in so that it wouldn't be 11 old white guys grilling a woman about sexual assault. They knew that the questioning wouldn't lead anywhere. They just wanted to avoid bad optics. Once Kavanaugh was brought in the prosecutor was tossed aside fairly quickly.
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Missing in this account is that Dr. Ford requested that the information she shared with Feinstein and Eshoo be kept private.

“I did not hide Dr. Ford’s allegations. I did not leak her story. She asked me to hold it confidential and I kept it confidential as she asked,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said.

From Ford's testimony:

On July 6, 2018, I had a sense of urgency to relay the information to the Senate and the President as soon as possible before a nominee was selected. I called my congressional representative and let her receptionist know that someone on the President’s shortlist had attacked me. I also sent a message to The Washington Post’s confidential tip line. I did not use my name, but I provided the names of Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge. I stated that Mr. Kavanaugh had assaulted me in the 1980s in Maryland. This was an extremely hard thing for me to do, but I felt I couldn’t NOT do it. Over the next two days, I told a couple of close friends on the beach in California that Mr. Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted me. I was conflicted about whether to speak out.

On July 9, 2018, I received a call from the office of Congresswoman Anna Eshoo after Mr. Kavanaugh had become the nominee. I met with her staff on July 11 and with her on July 13, describing the assault and discussing my fear about coming forward. Later, we discussed the possibility of sending a letter to Ranking Member Feinstein, who is one of my state’s Senators, describing what occurred. My understanding is that Representative Eshoo’s office delivered a copy of my letter to Senator Feinstein’s office on July 30, 2018. The letter included my name, but requested that the letter be kept confidential.

Now it could be argued that it would have been better if Ford had not requested that her letter be kept confidential. But I don't see anything from the facts of the situation that justifies the timing of when this went public as part of some nefarious plan.
 
Also from Ford's testimony:

My hope was that providing the information confidentially would be sufficient to allow the Senate to consider Mr. Kavanaugh’s serious misconduct without having to make myself, my family, or anyone’s family vulnerable to the personal attacks and invasions of privacy we have faced since my name became public. In a letter on August 31, 2018, Senator Feinstein wrote that she would not share the letter without my consent. I greatly appreciated this commitment. All sexual assault victims should be able to decide for themselves whether their private experience is made public.

I think it would have been better if Ford had gone public with this from the start. But I also understand the reasons why she acted in a hesitant fashion. What I don't see is some sort of dark conspiracy. That to me is a narrative with little foundation.
 
nsacpi said:
I also dont think Leland Keyser's statement is exculpatory as Kavanaugh claims. In her statement she says three things.

1. She doesnt remember the party in question.

2. She doesnt know Kavanaugh.

3. She believes Ford.

None of this is exculpatory. If her only interaction with Kavanaugh was being at one party with him, it is entirely possible he never registered in memory. Ditto for her not recalling a party where to her knowledge nothing remarkable happened.
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I’ve been banging this drum for a while, but this is one of the biggest issues to me. The language that Kavanaugh and the Rs kept using was “refuted,” etc, which is simply not an accurate assessment, legally or otherwise. It’s also not an accident.

Kavanaugh mischaracterized this. Kav, Cornyn, and I think Cruz (may have been others) also inaccurately characterized the NYT posture towards Ramirez’s story. This is also not an accident.

It’s a tangential detail, but Kav also asserted, incorrectly, that he and his cohorts were drinking legally during their senior year. He was 17 when Maryland changed their state law to make the legal age for beer 18. Any of his friends who were 18 at the time the law changed might’ve been legal, but he wasn’t. It’s inconsequential detail, but to me it speaks to his willingness to lie about any detail, no matter how trivial, to underpin the ridiculous narrative of his spotless character.

In concert with his obvious bull****ting about his sensitive stomach, the yearbooks, his drinking—to say nothing of his history of dissembling under oath—it blows my mind that anyone would weigh his testimony as being more credible than Dr Ford’s.
 
I guess Flake and Coons are to be commended for trying to restore some semblance of sanity to this. I don't think they can pick and choose what allegations the FBI investigates, or how long it takes, though. All credible allegations (with names attached) need to be vetted. It's the fairest thing to the accusers. It's the fairest thing to Kavanaugh. Idk why that's so goddamn difficult for some people to comprehend.
 
This whose ordeal is a complete disgrace.

It is moronic to think it’s ok to delay Garland’s confirmation, yet not ok to delay Kav’s. At this point it’s the only reasonable course of action. Ramming this through now would be political suicide for anyone who isn’t the impervious Great Pumpkin himself (I’m convinced someone could film him decapitating a baby and his base is so stupid they would believe him when he called it fake news).

However, withholding this accusation for 6+ weeks just to suddenly spring this circus to life now is absolutely reprehensible. All in the name of partisanship. Graham obviously has an agenda, but his points are valid...this circus could and should have been avoided.
 
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Enscheff said:
This whose ordeal is a complete disgrace.

It is moronic to think it’s ok to delay Garland’s confirmation, yet not ok to delay Kav’s. At this point it’s the only reasonable course of action. Ramming this through now would be political suicide for anyone who isn’t the impervious Great Pumpkin himself (I’m convinced someone could film him decapitating a baby and his base is so stupid they would believe him when he called it fake news).

However, withholding this accusation for 6+ weeks just to suddenly spring this circus to life now is absolutely reprehensible. All in the name of partisanship. Graham obviously has an agenda, but his points are valid...this circus could and should have been avoided.
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I think if some staffer outed Ford's confidentiality for a political mission, yea that's ****ty of them and they're a swamp creature. But that is way down the list of priorities here, no matter how much the GOP and Fox News want to make it a central issue. What happened at the end of today's hearing could have happened ****ing last week and there might be a final vote on his confirmation ready to go by now. It's just a weak sauce attempt to distract, given that their conspiracy that Ford was out to derail the nomination fell apart. Because she came forward before he was the nominee, right?

I don't think it can be lost that when Trump had it narrowed down to a handful of choices, McConnell was telling him Kavanaugh was the least confirmable.

Was that just about his Washington insider status? His connection to the Starr investigation? Or did he have a hint of something else?

Sen. Kennedy's questioning of Kavanaugh at the initial hearing was also curious. Were you John Boy Walton or Ferris Bueller?

:FrediWut:

It's like he was fishing for something.

And also: I would not put it past the Republicans for one minute that they were behind the suddenly transparent public disclosure of fourth and fifth anonymous and debunked allegations just to discredit the three with names attached. They are so sanctimonious in their pretending to give one damn about Ford and her well-being.
 
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