Washington Post: “This time, the questions were much different. An array of White House aides, playing the role of various senators on the Judiciary Committee, quizzed Kavanaugh last week about his sex life and other personal matters in an attempt to prepare him for a hearing that would inevitably be uncomfortable.”

“In his answers during the practice runs, aides said, Kavanaugh condemned sexual assault and carefully avoided seeming to discredit Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor in northern California who has accused the nominee of pinning her to a bed, groping her and putting his hand over her mouth to stifle her screams as he tried to take off her clothes at a drunken high school party in the early 1980s.”

“But Kavanaugh grew frustrated when it came to questions that dug into his private life, particularly his drinking habits and his sexual proclivities… He declined to answer some questions altogether, saying they were too personal.”

Garrett Ventry, a press adviser helping lead the Senate Judiciary Committee’s response to a sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, “has stepped down amid evidence he was fired from a previous political job in part because of a sexual harassment allegation against him,” NBC News reports.

“Republicans familiar with the situation had been concerned that Ventry, because of his history, could not lead an effective communications response.”

Meanwhile, Politico reports that Ventry previously worked for the public relations firm that guided the mistaken identity Doppleganger theory in defense of Kavanaugh.

“When Donald Trump won his upset presidential victory in 2016, Christine Blasey Ford’s thoughts quickly turned to a name most Americans had never heard of but one that had unsettled her for years: Brett M. Kavanaugh,” the Washington Post reports.

“Kavanaugh — a judge on the prestigious U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia — was among those mentioned as a possible replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. When Trump nominated Neil M. Gorsuch, Ford was relieved but still uneasy.”

“Ford had already moved 3,000 miles away from the affluent Maryland suburbs where she says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a house party — a charge he would emphatically deny. Suddenly, living in California didn’t seem far enough. Maybe another hemisphere would be. She went online to research other democracies where her family might settle, including New Zealand.”

Brett Kavanaugh is the least liked Supreme Court nominee since Robert Bork in 1987, CNN reports.

“Kavanaugh’s low ratings will no doubt give fuel to opponents. Interest groups are trying to convince moderate Democrats and Republicans to vote against him. If they can use these polls to persuade senators that it’s electorally harmful to vote for Kavanaugh, it could help their cause.”

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley agreed late Friday night to allow the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault more time to decide whether to testify before Congress, CNN reports.

Grassley tweeted that he “granted another extension” to Christine Blasey Ford, saying “she should decide so we can move on. I want to hear her.”

Max Boot: “That Kavanaugh is the victim of mistaken identity was the implausible theory put forward by Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington. On Thursday night he posted (and now has deleted) a long series of tweets, complete with links to Zillow and Google Maps, arguing that Ford had indeed been assaulted — but by a friend of Kavanaugh’s who looked a lot like him. And then he proceeded to name the friend and post his picture. In the long annals of American politics, a lot of people have done a lot of irresponsible things, but for sheer callousness and craziness it’s hard to top an accusation of sexual assault against a specific individual based on, essentially, nothing. This is McCarthyism redux — and if Kavanaugh is revealed to have any connection to the propagation of this loathsome falsehood, he should be voted down overwhelmingly by the Senate.”

“It tells you how far the right has descended into madness that this vile accusation did not come from an anonymous blogger on some online bulletin board or from professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. It came from someone with sterling establishment credentials.”

Politico: Public relations firm helped Whelan stoke half-baked Kavanaugh alibi.

Benjamin Wittes: “I have known Brett Kavanaugh for a long time—in many different contexts. I am fond of him personally. I think the world of him intellectually. I don’t believe he lied in his Senate testimony. I don’t believe he’s itching to get on the Supreme Court to protect Donald Trump from Robert Mueller. I’m much less afraid of conservative judges than are many of my liberal friends. As recently as a few days ago, I was cheerfully vouching for Kavanaugh’s character.”

“That said, the allegation against him is, at least so far as one can tell from the press reports, credible, and it deserves to be taken seriously.”

“If Kavanaugh were to ask my advice today—and to be clear, he hasn’t done so—I would tell him he almost certainly should have his nomination withdrawn. The circumstances in which he should fight this out are, in my view, extremely limited.”

A new USA Today/Ipsos poll taken following a sexual assault allegation issued against Brett Kavanaugh finds that 40% of Americans say he should be rejected by the Senate, while 31% say he should be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

President Trump urged the Senate “to get on with” the confirmation of his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, while casting additional doubt on the woman who has accused him of sexual assault, USA Today reports.

Said Trump: “Why didn’t someone call the FBI 36 years ago?”

He added: “They’ve delayed it a week already. They’ve delayed it a week, and they have to get on with it.”

“An attorney for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, said Thursday that her appearing at a hearing on Monday to detail her claims is ‘not possible’ but she could testify later in the week,” the Washington Post reports.

“The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA) said through a spokesman late Thursday that he would be consulting with colleagues on how to proceed. Kavanaugh wrote to Grassley in a letter released by the White House that he looks forward to testifying.”

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal finds that more American voters now oppose Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination than support it after he was accused of committing sexual assault while he was in high school, with opposition increasing 9 points since last month.

Key findings: 38% of voters say they oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination to serve on the nation’s highest court, including 27% who “strongly” oppose him. That’s compared with 34% who support his nomination, including 25% who “strongly” support him. Twenty-eight percent say they don’t enough to have an opinion.

“We got a little hiccup here with the Kavanaugh nomination. We’ll get through this and we’ll get off to the races.”

— Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), quoted by the Nevada Independent, downplaying the sexual assault allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh.