Some advocates of Christine Blasey Ford’s charge against Brett Kavanaugh make a very weak contention that is undermined by the facts.
Here‘s Nancy Gertner in the New York Times making the point: “The fact that she related her accusation to her husband and her therapist in 2012, long before Judge Kavanaugh was in the news as a Supreme Court nominee, counts for her credibility.”
The “gentlemen” at GQ seem to think it’s pertinent that “Ford discussed the assault back in 2012, long before Kavanaugh was a household name.” Max Boot made the same point.
The premise here is that nobody was talking about Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court back in 2012. That premise is false.
Here‘s an April 2012 piece in Reuters, headlined “A Romney pick for top U.S. court? Frontrunners emerge.” It mentions Paul Clement as the “favorite” but immediately adds “Mentioned as often as Clement is Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.”
This CNN piece in October 2012 follows the same pattern, naming Kavanaugh as the second on the list of potential Romney nominees to the high court. Many articles were doing the same thing.
In March 2012, in the New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin – a premier liberal legal scholar – wrote a magazine article about Kavanaugh. The piece concluded: “If a Republican, any Republican, wins in November, his most likely first nominee to the Supreme Court will be Brett Kavanaugh.”
So what?
Two things:
1) Contrary to the assertions in the New York Times, the Washington Post, GQ, and other outlets, Ford wasn’t bringing up this alleged assault when nobody was talking about Kavanaugh. It lends little or no extra credence to her charges that she apparently mentioned the attack in 2012 when Kavanaugh’s name was being floated for the high court in many major outlets.
2) On the flip side, this doesn’t suggest it was always a conspiracy. The 2012 timing shouldn’t be deemed “suspicious.” If Kavanaugh actually did assault her, his reemergence on the national stage would understandably trigger her anxiety and prompt her to talk about it. I’ve seen this very phenomenon.
