Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has made a fool of herself and her position.
She insisted on Thursday that the sexual assault allegation leveled against presidential candidate Joe Biden is “totally different” than the allegations made against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Why? Because Tara Reade, Biden’s former congressional staffer, did not come forward until last year after Biden announced his bid for the White House.
“I don’t know this person at all who has made the allegations,” Feinstein told CNN. “She came out of nowhere. Where has she been all these years? He was vice president. To attack him this way, to me, is absolutely ridiculous.”
Feinstein was singing a different tune in 2018, when she helped propel Christine Blasey Ford to the national stage shortly after Kavanaugh was nominated. The same could have been, and was, said about Ford: She, too, seemingly came out of nowhere at the last possible minute. Kavanaugh had been a high-ranking federal judge long before he was nominated — so why hadn’t Ford said anything before?
It shouldn’t matter when sexual assault survivors come forward, nor is it surprising that Reade, like Ford, would wait, regardless of whether their stories are true. The trauma and pain associated with sexual assault often leads to secrecy, which is why many are so hesitant to report their attackers at all, let alone an attacker with a national platform. The entire purpose of the #MeToo movement was to make it easier for women to come forward voluntarily, but rank hypocrisy like Feinstein’s will undo any progress we have achieved.
Moreover, it is incredible that Feinstein would dismiss Reade’s allegation, which has been corroborated by at least four independent sources and contemporaneously confirmed by several other key pieces of evidence, when she had no trouble at all pushing conspiracies about Kavanaugh that were far more outlandish than Ford’s allegation.
Remember Julie Swetnick? She was one of Kavanaugh’s accusers, and she eventually walked back her preposterous claim that Kavanaugh had been involved in gang-rape parties. But Feinstein repeated Swetnick’s story anyway, urging the FBI to investigate Swetnick’s claims and demanding that Kavanaugh withdraw his name from consideration.
There is simply no plausible way to square Feinstein’s actions back in 2018 with her statements now, other than the obvious: Biden is a Democrat, and Kavanaugh was not. This double standard is obvious, and it’s saddening, too. Because right now, it seems like Reade’s biggest misstep was accusing the wrong person.
