CNN, MSNBC, Politico, Elizabeth Warren push dishonestly edited video of Kavanaugh

If you think Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., is the only one who would stoop to circulating a dishonestly edited video of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation fight, you are sorely mistaken.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., CNN, MSNBC, and Politico all showed this week they’ve no problem sinking to similar lows in pursuit of that sweet, sweet anti-Trump resistance action.

On Tuesday, all four groups shared a truncated video of Kavanaugh, claiming it raises new questions about whether he sexually assaulted a woman in the early 1980s when they were both in high school.

“Fortunately we had a good saying that we’ve held firm to to this day as the Dean was reminding me before, before the talk which is ‘What happens at Georgetown prep, stays at Georgetown prep.’ That’s been a good thing for all of us, I think,” Kavanaugh says in the edited video, which comes from an address he delivered in 2015 to the Columbus School of Law.

MSNBC was first to broadcast the clip, winking all the while that it may prove the judge did indeed sexually assault Christine Blasey Ford. The video was soon shared online by the Wrap editor Jon Levine, whose tweet has racked up more than 10,300 shares.

Warren went next, saying in a tweet to her more than four million followers, “Brett Kavanaugh talking about his high school in 2015: ‘What happens at Georgetown Prep, stays at Georgetown Prep.’ I can’t imagine any parent accepting this view. Is this really what America wants in its next Supreme Court Justice?”

Her note has been shared by more than 13,000 social media users.

Then there is CNN’s Jim Acosta, who said Tuesday evening in reference to the truncated video that, “There are portions of [Kavanaugh’s] childhood he’d rather not come to light.”

CNN contributor and New Yorker legal analyst Jeffery Toobin also weighed in on the video, saying, “It doesn’t prove anything in and of itself, but it is circumstantial evidence that if you were doing an actual serious investigation you would figure into the process.”

Lastly, there is Politico, which reported, “Kavanaugh gave no other context for the joke.” It also published an edited version of Kavanaugh’s remarks.

It’s astonishing that none of these people were able to provide the entire video or the full context of Kavanaugh’s remarks, considering both are readily available and easy to find on YouTube. Maybe there have been budget cuts at CNN, Politico, etc.

Had any of the high-profile figures sharing and commenting on the edited video Tuesday bothered to investigate what Kavanaugh actually said, they would’ve found that he was clearly telling a joke.

Here’s exactly what the judge said in 2015, transcript via Grabien:

Kavanaugh’s critics are actually suggesting he got up in front of a group of strangers and admitted to committing the sort of acts that would require a code of silence – all while implicating his former colleagues by name. To them, this is more believable than the idea he was telling a typical joke that was a bit of a groaner.

This – this is it? Have these people never heard of the “What happens in X, stays in X” joke formulation? Have these people never heard of dad jokes?

My guess is that Kavanaugh’s critics’ answers to all of the above is “yes.” They just don’t care. For them, there’s no time for context. There’s a Supreme Court nominee to torpedo!

(h/t Grabien)