If ever there was a need for an instant injection of civility and a genuine will for truth and honesty in American government, now is a pretty good time.
Another zero-sum rift has opened up in the public sphere of American society, separating Democrats, Republicans, and independents who struggle to make sense of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings and sexual assault allegations put forth by Christine Blasey Ford and two other female accusers.
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This debate, elongated over the eight-hour hearing, covered every aspect of the accusations brought forth and the evidence presented by both sides. It also exposed a rather nasty form of political tribalism.
This was, as mentioned multiple times during both testimonies, not a hearing of law but a hearing of public opinion. However, the duty of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in order to properly “advise and consent” on Kavanaugh’s nomination, is to find out the objective facts of what happened 36 years ago at the party that Ford says traumatized her life and that Kavanaugh says never happened.
The sole purpose of this hearing was to find out if Kavanaugh committed the sexual assault he has been accused of, and that’s it.
It is not the job of this committee, however, to use this accusation for a broader progressive cause, or to champion it as a campaign for women’s rights. While this is certainly a conversation worth having, this is not the place or time. The purpose of the proceeding was solely to discern facts from fiction in these specific accusations in order to assess moral integrity and character. Using passionate emotional outcries for social justice is simply not the best way to conduct an honest truth search on a single allegation.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., in his 5 minutes with Ford constantly referred to her testimony as “her truth” needing to be heard.
This is nonsense. Truth is not subjective; the events pronounced either happened, or they did not. The truth is independent and immune to the subjectivity of any individual, and the job of the Senate Judiciary Committee here is to find out the objective truth, not his or her subjective version of it.
Some of what Sens. Booker and Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said about sexual assault victims’ reporting, based on what we know about trauma, sexually induced or otherwise, is born out from evidence. The propensity for victims to fail to come forward due to shame or fear of repercussion is real and adamantly recognized by judicial, medical, and law enforcement agencies constantly.
This does not mean that all testimonies are equal, and that sexual assault victims deserve to be believed more than robbery or shooting victims solely because of the crime they suffered. Each case needs a full, dispassionate, independent, and objective assessment of facts and evidence.
Ford’s testimony was emotional and believable. Her trembling voice and difficulty holding a steady gaze spoke of honesty and sincerity, as did her words. I felt compassion and sorrow for her, and the way in which her coming forth has been handled by the people she entrusted with confidentiality.
But this should not be a contest of “believability.” Even if Ford is fully credible, being accused of a crime necessitates bulletproof evidence to be credible. An accusation of a crime brought forward by an opposition senator, during a time of political tension, against a Supreme Court nominee concerning drunken teenage sexual misconduct from 36 years ago, necessitates extraordinary and irrefutable evidence. And as much as I care for Ford, she simply has not presented that.
As Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said during the hearing, what would a hypothetical, hyper-rational “fact- finder” look for to form an honest educated opinion on this highly chaotic, subjective subject?
The first and most obvious fact to examine is the following. All three witnesses allegedly present at the event, (per Ford) under oath and threat of perjury, systematically deny any recollection of the party ever happening, and specifically refute Ford’s allegations. That includes Mark Judge and a longtime friend of Ford, Leland Keyser, who seems to have every incentive to corroborate Ford’s story.
Denying that this is heavily significant, and rather quite suspect, is just not being forthcoming. Just imagine having your son accused of sexual misconduct, with three people supposedly at the party saying they don’t remember the party ever happening. Wouldn’t you want people to consider that?
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The second piece of evidence that would jump out at a fact-finder is the crude and rather baffling way in which Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., withheld the letter written by Ford accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault for 60 days before coming forward. During those 60 days, this matter could have been handed over to the FBI for a confidential, objective investigation about Kavanaugh’s past. If the accusation were brought forth then (as is required by law), this climate of social division and moral panic might have been avoided, potentially yielding a clearer version of what really happened. That speaks poorly of Feinstein’s intention.
On multiple occasions, Kavanaugh met with Feinstein and other senators for interviews, testified under oath for two days, and yet for some reason Feinstein failed to mention the letter until it was mysteriously leaked (against Ford’s wishes), setting off a media firestorm which threw the lives of two seemingly decent families into tumult. Surely, the possibility of an orchestrated leaking of the document, due to its peculiar timing, can be entertained even by the most ardent Democrat.
The third fact that a fact-finder might want to consider is the vast outpouring of support Kavanaugh has received by all sorts of past friends and colleagues. Any investigator, when looking into the past of an accused, hears the testimonies of past relations, friends, and colleagues to look for consistent behavior indicative of wrongdoing, and to establish a character analysis.
In this case, more than 70 women whom have known Kavanaugh, ranging from former students, hired law clerks, and even ex-girlfriends, have expressed disbelief that he was capable of committing the acts he is being accused of. Again, the sheer volume of supporters just can’t be dismissed as trivial or nonindicative.
When the three accusations against Kavanaugh are lined up, it makes him look like a coordinated, psychopathic serial criminal, who drugged and assaulted women, consistently exposed himself, and covered up attempts to rape women. Are we to believe that this behavior simply stopped after his high school days? How come there wasn’t any accusation present in the last 30 years or so of his intensely public and divisive political life? Why did the accusations become public just before his lifetime appointment to the highest judicial body in the land, spearheaded by Democrats who have promised to oppose his nomination “with all they’ve got”?
Furthermore, during the hearing Democrats repeatedly pressured the judge into accepting an FBI investigation (even though calling for this is unequivocally not under his powers or responsibility), despite being reminded by the chairman of the committee that any senator was free to ask for an FBI intervention themselves.
While the FBI is now investigating the allegations against Kavanaugh, an FBI investigation in this context does not yield any definitive conclusions. It is simply a collection of evidence and a transmission of that information to this committee, which itself reaches conclusions.
In the words of a prior chairman of this committee, then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., “Anybody who thinks that an FBI investigation here means anything doesn’t know anything. Period. It is simply a collection of the ‘He said, she said.’ We make the conclusions.”
If Ford or any of the other accusers somehow come up with corroborating, strong evidence, all of us should oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination. But this requires objective facts, not emotional motivations for a grand social cause brought forth by politicians who have been known to politically capitalize on them.
Louis Sarkozy is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a student in philosophy and religion at New York University. He is the youngest son of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
