Donald Trump’s Brett Kavanaugh nomination is unraveling by the minute
Whatever the odds were of Brett Kavanaugh being confirmed to the Supreme Court when the day started, those odds are now much, much lower as of this evening. We’ve seen a remarkable series of events and revelations involving the woman who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault and attempted rape, the one other person who was in the room at the time of the incident, and the fate of the Senate Judiciary Committee vote – and things just keep unraveling.
First we saw Christine Blasey Ford come forward and identify herself as Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser. Then we saw the GOP leadership of the Senate Judiciary Committee issue a defiant statement in defense of Kavanaugh, which was purportedly from all eleven committee Republicans. But even as this statement was being widely criticized, two of the Republicans on the committee were singing a different tune. Jeff Flake stated that he won’t vote “yes” if the vote is held this week. Lindsey Graham said he was interested in hearing from Ford before casting his vote.
This is a big deal because the Senate Judiciary Committee has eleven Republicans and ten Democrats so it only takes one Republican voting “no” – or one Republican refusing to let a vote happen – in order to delay or derail the nomination process. This is before getting to the question of whether two Republicans might end up deciding to cover their own backsides by voting “no” in a full Senate vote. The mere fact that Flake has blinked is significant, because up to now the GOP had been unified in its strategy to ram Kavanaugh through as quickly as possible. Equally important is that the one person who was in the room with Kavanaugh and Ford has now been completely discredited.
Brett Kavanaugh’s friend Mark Judge is claiming that he was in the room with Kavanaugh and Ford, and that Kavanaugh did not sexually assault her. However, Mark Judge has previously written a book about this period of his life, in which he describes himself as having been a blackout drunk. This means his recollection of events from this period of time cannot be given any credibility – and it’s difficult to imagine that anyone in the GOP would risk calling him to testify as a character witness.
