Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans announced Tuesday evening that the panel should be prepared to vote on the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court on Friday, just one day after he and his accuser Dr. Christine Blasey Ford will testify before the committee regarding allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school.
Republicans on the committee have attempted to accelerate the confirmation process since Ford’s allegations were made public in The Washington Post more than a week ago. Since then, another woman, Deborah Ramirez, has come forward, alleging that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a dorm party while they were both students at Yale University.
According to The New Yorker, Senate Republicans were made aware of Ramirez’s allegations last week, after which time they pushed for accelerating the committee vote. Kavanaugh has denied both allegations, even going so far as to make the ridiculous defense that he was a virgin in high school and “many years thereafter.”
All the while, GOP committee members have smeared the women who have come forward, calling Ford “mixed up” and questioning the timing of the allegations as an attempt to “play politics.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has made statements effectively guaranteeing that Kavanaugh will be confirmed, essentially rendering Thursday’s hearing pointless.
And, in many respects, that’s exactly what it is. By all accounts, committee Republicans have already made up their minds about Kavanaugh. In fact, they’re so eager to confirm him despite the allegations that they have refused to give Ramirez an opportunity to testify, according to her lawyer John Clune.
“They won’t talk to us,” Clune told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday. “The demand that they keep making to us is, ‘Give us every piece of information that you have now and then we can talk about scheduling a phone call.’ And that’s just not the kind of partisan game playing that our client deserves.”
A third woman, Julie Swetnick, who came forward Wednesday morning, accusing Kavanaugh of a pattern of sexual misconduct — including “abusive and physically aggressive behavior to girls” — also will not be testifying at Thursday’s hearing.
The intention of the hearing, for Republicans, is not to determine the facts of the case, but to assuage the few senators who could be swing votes on the nomination: potentially Sens. Jeff Flake, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski. Just two Republican senators voting against him would be enough to derail Kavanaugh’s nomination.
Even the president has hinted this is the party’s goal. He told reporters Wednesday morning he would have preferred that the nomination process were sped up earlier, to defray any questions into Kavanaugh’s background.
REPORTER: Your thoughts on the woman questioning Kavanaugh's accuser tomorrow?
TRUMP: I think Republicans are being nice. They could have pushed it through weeks ago & you wouldn't be talking about it right now, which is what I would have preferred…K is a gem…it's a con game pic.twitter.com/EGJHz7T3oL
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 26, 2018
The structure of the hearing itself is also laughable. Republicans have hired a woman attorney (or, a “female assistant,” to use McConnell’s tone-deaf phrasing) to question Ford, in an apparent attempt to avoid the negative optics of an all-male panel questioning a woman they have already tried to publicly discredit. A Republican woman has never served on the Judiciary Committee.
Following Ford’s testimony and questioning, senators will question Kavanaugh for a mere five minutes each — only one round of questioning for a man accused of at least two instances (and potentially others) of sexual assault and harassment, even though that man that will likely go on to serve on the highest court of the land for the rest of his life.
In an interview with ABC News last week, Anita Hill, who accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in 1991, said committee members should “push the pause button on this hearing, get the information together, bring in the experts and put together a hearing that is fair, that is impartial.”
“We’re talking about whether the conditions are actually tenable,” she added, “whether or not it is going to be anything more than just a sham proceeding so that the senators can say we gave her a chance to talk and then move on to doing exactly what they were intending to do before she came forward.”
This post has been updated with news about a third woman, Julie Swetnick, who came forward with allegations against Kavanaugh.