At about this time a year ago, the country was in the midst of the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh when Christine Blasey Ford went public with allegations of an incident of sexual assault in 1982. My commentary on the subject was limited and neutral:
It is possible that Blasey Ford's letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein could be true. In which case there is the danger of having a sociopath sitting on the Supreme Court. As if having one in the White House isn't bad enough.
It is also possible that Blasey Ford's letter isn't true at all. Politics in this country is played for keeps. Do I think Democrats would knowingly lie or suborn libel to prevent Kavanaugh from being seated on the Supreme Court? I certainly do.
It now appears that Blasey Ford's letter to Senator Feinstein was indeed politically motivated. Blasey Ford's attorney Debra Katz admitted as much in a speech she made last April at a conference at the University of Baltimore. The video of the speech only came to light earlier this week:
In the aftermath of these hearings, I believe that Christine’s testimony brought about more good than the harm misogynist Republicans caused by allowing Kavanaugh on the Court. We were going to have a conservative [justice]… elections have consequences, but he will always have an asterisk next to his name. When he takes a scalpel to Roe v. Wade, we will know who he is, we know his character, and we know what motivates him, and that is important; it is important that we know, and that is part of what motivated Christine.
If this had been a criminal proceeding, any defense attorney worth their salt would scream "reasonable doubt" at the top of their lungs. What bearing does Kavanaugh's views on abortion or any other subject have on an allegation of sexual assault? Would Blasey Ford have made any complaint if Kavanaugh had been a Democrat whose rulings had been praised by Planned Parenthood and NARAL? Either Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Blasey Ford or he didn't. That is the only issue at hand. To put a political matter of any sort into the equation trivializes the heinous nature of sexual assault and the ordeal victims of sexual assault long after their occurrence.
At this point, Blasey Ford hasn't repudiated her attorney's statement. Absent any repudiation one must reasonably conclude that Kavanaugh's views on abortion at the very minimum partially motivated her allegations and was very possibly the sole motivation. The fact that her attorney would brag that her client's allegations put an asterisk besides his name calls the credibility of Blasey Ford's allegations in question not to mention Katz's ethical standards regarding attorney-client privilege.
Katz's comments give the appearance that Blasey Ford's allegations were designed to smear the reputation of a man because his worldview was contrary to her own, not because of any unlawful conduct on his part. As such, barring further evidence to the contrary, I am now disinclined to believe Christine Blaney Ford's allegations of sexual assault against Justice Kavanaugh.
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