It is not true, as the media are now trying to represent, that the entire conservative movement immediately and unconditionally rallied to the defense of Brett Kavanaugh when he faced a sexual assault allegation.
Sure, there were some who immediately dismissed the charges, holding that they didn’t matter even if true. But even as conservatives lambasted Democrats for their handling of the Christine Blasey Ford allegation, it is more than fair to say that most of them, and certainly those most respected on the Right, considered the claims themselves deeply troublesome and worthy of investigation.
Ben Shapiro called the account “credible on its face” and noted that “we need to hear more.” David French observed that if the “beyond the pale” attack did happen, Kavanaugh would be disqualified simply by having falsely denied it. For at least a week, it truly looked as though Kavanaugh’s nomination was hanging in the balance, with multiple senators withholding judgment.
It wasn’t until Kavanaugh embraced radical transparency that he persuaded Senate Republicans and the conservative movement that his account was more credible. He provided his contemporaneous calendars, unfettered access to witnesses and people who knew him at the time, and lengthy and numerous personal accounts about his behavior related to sex and alcohol. That he was eager to address the allegation head-on was reassuring. That he tried to supply every iota of evidence he possessed — and he possessed a surprising amount of it — further suggested that he believed the truth would exonerate him.
It was this transparency that shifted the preponderance of the evidence to Kavanaugh’s side, against an accuser who did not remember when or where the incident had occurred and who could produce no contemporaneous witnesses or evidence that she had ever crossed paths with Kavanaugh.
Joe Biden, the near-certain presidential nominee for the Democrats, now faces a similarly thinly sourced, eleventh-hour charge of a serious sexual nature. The claim that Biden assaulted a Senate staffer in the ’90s, if true, would be immediately disqualifying, of course. That’s a big “if,” but the word is doing less work than it had to in the case of Kavanaugh.
Unlike with Kavanaugh and Ford, who might have literally never been in the same room together before 2018, no one is disputing that Biden’s accuser, Tara Reade, worked in his Senate office. One supposedly contemporaneously corroborating witness, Reade’s brother, has changed his story, and another, an anonymous friend, claims that Reade alleged some sort of inappropriate behavior at the time. But a third friend, one who has spoken to multiple journalists but never for direct quotation, reportedly claims that Reade described an assault.
No, the evidence does not seem to stack up to proof that Biden is guilty. But that third witness leaves it an open question — one that Democrats should want to investigate. Fortunately, the means are at hand.
Over at the Washington Examiner‘s news desk, Joseph Simonson and Emily Larsen report that the proof could be locked up in his personal collection at the University of Delaware. My colleagues report:
She told the Washington Examiner that while trying to locate the complaint, a Senate personnel office told her that all documents regarding Biden’s Senate office would have been returned to him.
What senators keep from their offices in public archives widely varies, however. Biden or his staff, if they received a record of the complaint, may have thrown it out.
“If anything is in the Senator’s papers, they’re his property, there’s no federal rule there,” Ritchie said.
The Biden campaign told the New York Times that it did not have a record of a complaint from Reade. But few people, if any, know the full extent of what is in the archives.
So, both lax record-keeping rules and the possibility that Biden’s team destroyed the report could confound this potential for evidence. Still, as a show of transparency, Biden could unseal his collection. He should want to do so. As with Kavanaugh’s meticulous calendars, showing his activities throughout his high school career, it wouldn’t prove definitively exculpatory. But it would be a show of good faith and a sign that Biden feels he has nothing to hide.
Without Kavanaugh’s Fox News interview and his complete compliance with the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, it is doubtful that Kavanaugh would be on the Supreme Court today. Biden needs to stare this allegation directly in the face, tell the public from his heart that he denies it, and cooperate as much as possible in providing transparency if he genuinely believes he’ll be exonerated.
Otherwise, this story will continue to simmer until Election Day.
