"...Let’s leave aside the procedural questions about if and how an investigation should proceed. Given what we know now, after the hearings, what can we conclude for certain? Let’s just say we do not know whether to believe Ford or Kavanaugh, that we found both of their testimonies equally likely to be true. In a state of uncertainty, we’d be left with a tricky situation. The truth or falsity of the allegation against Kavanaugh is
extremely important; if it’s true, not only did he attack a woman three decades ago, but he lied shamelessly about it under oath, f0rcing Ford through a humiliating public process that led to her receiving death threats. If what Ford says is true, then not only should Brett Kavanaugh not be confirmed to the Supreme Court, but he should be impeached and removed from the federal judiciary entirely, disbarred, and prosecuted for perjury.
The stakes here are high: If Kavanaugh did it and is confirmed, then a sexual assailant and sociopathic liar will be given one of the most powerful offices in the country (wouldn’t be the
first time). If he didn’t do it, then his indignation and disgust is justified. Republicans have argued that Ford’s allegation is completely unproven, uncorroborated, and totally inconsistent with known facts, and that presenting it to the country represents an abandonment of the “presumption of innocence” (which it is refreshing to hear them care about).
What is the best way, then, to figure out the truth? It’s absolutely the case that Christine Ford has no eyewitnesses to support her. She cannot remember exactly where the assault happened, or exactly when. She can’t remember all the people who were at the house, and the people she
does say were there have said they have no memory of the event. She told nobody about it at the time. Looking at these facts, we can see how someone strongly committed to due process might think the allegation extremely weak. (Just for the moment, let’s leave aside the
two other serious sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh.)
However, while these aspects of Ford’s allegation might lead us to demand more proof, they
in no way make it inconceivable. In fact, they’re exactly what we might expect if the allegation were true. A girl attacked by two jocks at a party may not tell anybody, precisely because she knows there are no eyewitnesses, they’d back each other up, and even if there had been physical evidence they could
never be convicted of anything. It’s not surprising that attendees other than Ford don’t remember this gathering; she says it was small and informal, and remembering who was at every small and informal gathering you were ever at in high school three decades ago is
impossible. Ford (and the alleged perpetrators) is the only one it was a significant night for. So the lack of corroboration doesn’t itself make the allegation dubious, and if we demand eyewitnesses before believing victims,
most of the time someone who did this would get away with it, because most of the time people are sexually violated in private. Of course there is a serious risk to the “believe all accusers” approach—it leads to wrongful convictions. But there is also a risk to a “never believe an uncorroborated charge” approach—it means that you can attack someone if you’re alone with them, and as long as you leave no marks, you’ll get away with it forever...
The existence of a “he said, she said” does not mean it’s impossible to figure out the truth. It means we have to examine what he said, and what she said, as closely as possible. If both parties speak with passion and clarity, but one of them says many inconsistent, evasive, irrational, and false things, while the other does not, then we actually have a very good indicator of which party is telling the truth. If a man claims to be innocent, but does things—like carefully manipulate words to avoid giving clear answers, or lie about the evidence—that you probably wouldn’t do if you were innocent, then testimony alone can substantially change our confidence in who to believe.
In this case, when we examine the testimony of Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford honestly, impartially, and carefully, it is impossible to escape the following conclusions:
- Brett Kavanaugh is lying.
- There is no good reason to believe that Christine Blasey Ford is lying. This does not mean that she is definitely telling the truth, but that there is nothing in what Kavanaugh said that in any way discredits her account.
I want to show you, clearly and definitively, how Brett Kavanaugh has lied to you and lied to the Senate. I cannot prove that he committed sexual assault when he was 17, and I hesitate to draw conclusions about what happened for a few minutes in a house in Maryland in the summer of 1982. But I can prove quite easily that Kavanaugh’s teary-eyed “good, innocent man indignant at being wrongfully accused” schtick was a facade. What may have looked like a strong defense was in fact a very, very weak and implausible one."
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"How We Know Kavanaugh Is Lying", by
Nathan J. Robinson