When Brett Kavanaugh takes the seat on Thursday to testify again before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he will face, among others, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii. Since the last time they met, Hirono has sent out fundraising emails to the donors of MoveOn.org, seeking to bring in some case from the ruin of Kavanaugh’s reputation. Not only that, but she actually wrote to those donors that she thinks Kavanaugh “knows he is guilty.”
“If Kavanaugh is innocent,” she wrote, “why isn’t he calling for a full investigation to prove it unequivocally? I worry that the answer is that he knows he is guilty. And if that’s the case, we absolutely must do everything we can to stop him.”
[Related: Female Senate Democrats tell male GOP colleagues to ‘shut up’ and ‘do the right thing’]
We call this circular logic, and in an investigatory context, we would call it a prosecutorial abuse of power: “If you’re not guilty, then why am I asking you questions?”
I would like to see Kavanaugh mention this email in his testimony. “One of you has written to your political donors to tell them that I know I am guilty,” he could say. “I assure you, Sen. Hirono, I know that I am innocent, even if no one will send me a donation for saying so.”
That’s what I’d say, and of course, that’s why I wouldn’t be confirmed. But she’d deserve it.
Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation against Kavanaugh may be true, or it may be made up (as the Deborah Ramirez story appears to be), or it may just be mistaken in some or several particulars, including as to Kavanaugh’s involvement. The lack of any corroboration at this point guarantees that people will choose to believe or disbelieve it based on their politics. For Hirono, however, it is a political opportunity — hence the no-compromises guilty-until-proven-innocent approach to the issue. It’s just hard for people who get caught up leading such lynch-mobs to remember that they’re destroying real people who may well be innocent.
I will only mention as an aside that MoveOn.org, the group that Hirono was fundraising for, was founded specifically to protect a sexual predator from the consequences of his behavior.
