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You are here: Home / Archives for Brett Kavanaugh

Kavanaugh Made the Case to Vote Against Him

October 2, 2018 at 3:20 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Benjamin Wittes: “These are words I write with no pleasure, but with deep sadness. Unlike many people who will read them with glee—as validating preexisting political, philosophical, or jurisprudential opposition to Kavanaugh’s nomination—I have no hostility to or particular fear of conservative jurisprudence. I have a long relationship with Kavanaugh and I have always liked him. I have admired his career on the D.C. Circuit. I have spoken warmly of him. I have published him. I have vouched publicly for his character—more than once—and taken a fair bit of heat for doing so.”

“Despite all of that, if I were a senator, I would vote against Kavanaugh’s confirmation. I would do it both because of Ford’s testimony and because of Kavanaugh’s. For reasons I will describe, I find her account more believable than his. I would also do it because whatever the truth of what happened in the summer of 1982, Thursday’s hearing left Kavanaugh non-viable as a justice.”

Filed Under: Senate Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh

Bonus Quote of the Day

October 2, 2018 at 12:29 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“We can’t have that on the Court.”

— Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), quoted by The Atlantic, after calling Brett Kavanaugh’s interactions with senators “sharp and partisan.”

Filed Under: Senate Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh, Jeff Flake

Does the Kavanaugh Fight Help the GOP In Red States?

October 2, 2018 at 10:29 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

First Read: “While it’s too early to make this conclusion, it’s worth asking whether the fight over Kavanaugh helps out Republicans in red states. We’ve seen the polls — from Quinnipiac and CBS — showing that more Americans/voters oppose Kavanaugh’s confirmation than support it. But that’s nationally. How about in North Dakota? Or Indiana? Or Missouri?”

The Hill: “Senate Democrats up for reelection this year in deep-red states face a nightmare decision on how to handle Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh

GOP Rides Male Resentment Ahead of Midterms

October 1, 2018 at 8:19 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have sparked a wave of unbridled anger and anxiety from many Republican men, who say they are in danger of being swept up by false accusers who are biased against them,” the Washington Post reports.

“This eruption of male resentment now seems likely to play a defining role in the midterm elections just five weeks away, contrasting with a burst of enthusiasm among women propelling Democratic campaigns and inspired by the national #MeToo reckoning over sexual assault and gender roles.”

Filed Under: 2018 Campaign Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh

Police Questioned Kavanaugh After Bar Fight

October 1, 2018 at 8:05 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“As an undergraduate student at Yale, Brett Kavanaugh was involved in an altercation at a local bar during which he was accused of throwing ice on another patron,” the New York Times reports.

“The incident, which occurred in September 1985 during Mr. Kavanaugh’s junior year, resulted in Mr. Kavanaugh and four other men being questioned by the New Haven Police Department. Mr. Kavanaugh was not arrested, but the police report stated that a 21-year-old man accused Mr. Kavanaugh of throwing ice on him ‘for some unknown reason.’”

Filed Under: Senate Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh

Friend Has Evidence Kavanaugh Knew of Accusations

October 1, 2018 at 6:05 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“In the days leading up to a public allegation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh exposed himself to a college classmate, the judge and his team were communicating behind the scenes with friends to refute the claim,” according to text messages obtained by NBC News.

“Kerry Berchem, who was at Yale with both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Deborah Ramirez, has attempted to get those messages to the FBI for its newly reopened investigation into the matter but says she has yet to be contacted by the bureau.”

“The texts also demonstrate that Kavanaugh and Ramirez were more socially connected than previously understood and that Ramirez was uncomfortable around Kavanaugh when they saw each other at a wedding 10 years after they graduated.”

Filed Under: Senate Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh

Killer Qs

October 1, 2018 at 5:30 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

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Filed Under: Members, Senate Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh

Flake Says Probe Can’t Just Provide ‘Cover’ for GOP

October 1, 2018 at 3:02 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) urged the FBI to investigate all “credible” allegations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh, adding that he felt dismay that the Senate Judiciary Committee hadn’t been “doing due diligence” going into its Thursday hearing addressing the allegations, Politico reports.

Said Flake: “It does no good to have an investigation that gives us more cover.”

Filed Under: Senate Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh, Jeff Flake

Maine Newspaper Urges Collins to Vote Against Kavanaugh

October 1, 2018 at 10:55 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Portland Press Herald urged Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) not to vote for Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, “regardless” of what the FBI finds.

“Based on what he demonstrated in his own testimony, Kavanaugh lacks the character and judgment to serve on the Supreme Court…. Kavanaugh revealed that he has an explosive temper and resorts to bullying when he feels threatened… Kavanaugh also showed himself to be impermissibly political for a job that is supposed to be above politics. We’re not naïve. But we have never had a Supreme Court nominee who ripped off the nonpartisan mask the way Kavanaugh did Thursday… After his partisan rant, Kavanaugh will never be able to judge a case without the animus he expressed being considered a factor in his decision.”

Filed Under: Senate Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh, Susan Collins

Prosecutor Offers Memo on Kavanaugh Allegations

October 1, 2018 at 6:30 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Washington Post: “The outside prosecutor Senate Republicans hired to lead the questioning in last week’s hearing about the sexual assault allegations against Brett M. Kavanaugh is arguing in a new memo why she would not bring criminal charges against the Supreme Court nominee.”

“In the five-page memo… Rachel Mitchell outlines more than half a dozen reasons why she thinks the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford — who has accused Kavanaugh of assaulting her at a house in suburban Maryland when they were teenagers in the early 1980s — has some key inconsistencies.”

Filed Under: Senate Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh

Friend Says Kavanaugh Was an Aggressive Drunk

September 30, 2018 at 10:10 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Charles Ludington, a college friend of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, told the Washington Post that he will deliver a statement to the FBI on Monday detailing Kavanaugh’s “belligerent and aggressive” drunken conduct while the two were at Yale.

Said Ludington: “When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive. On one of the last occasions I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man’s face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail.”

Ludington says he was deeply troubled by Kavanaugh appearing to blatantly mischaracterize his drinking in Senate testimony.

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh

FBI May Not Interview Ford or Kavanaugh

September 30, 2018 at 10:01 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford may not be interviewed in the FBI’s week-long probe into the allegations of sexual misconduct against the Supreme Court nominee, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Ford claims that she has not been contacted by the FBI since the week-long ceasefire was announced, suggesting that she and Kavanaugh may fall outside the scope of the probe.

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh

Kavanaugh Is Too Big to Fail

September 30, 2018 at 8:36 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Jonathan Swan: “For the White House, it’s Brett Kavanaugh or bust. They have no Plan B and there’s not even discussion of one.”

Said one senior source: “He’s too big to fail now. Our base, our voters, our side, people are so mad. There’s nowhere to go. We’re gonna make them fucking vote. Manchin in West Virginia, in those red states. Joe Donnelly? He said he’s a no? Fine, we’ll see how that goes. There will be a vote on him… It will be a slugfest of a week.”

Said a White House source: “There’s no time before the election to put up a new person.”

“That’s just as well, because the small team working to confirm Kavanaugh has not been looking for a backup candidate, let alone vetting one.”

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh

The Politics of the FBI Investigation

September 30, 2018 at 12:00 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Playbook: “The FBI has a tough job in the coming week. The investigation into Brett Kavanaugh is limited to ‘current credible allegations’ against the judge. But there seems to be a number of ways they can get crosswise with Democrats. For example: is the FBI going to probe Kavanaugh’s behavior at Yale? Is the investigation going to probe all allegations by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick? Who decides what is credible? There are endless ways people will be able to discredit the investigation as not thorough enough.”

“This probe is being done to mollify a handful of Republicans. The vast majority of Democrats were always going to vote against Kavanaugh. They are after Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Jeff Flake. And they only need two of the three.”

“And remember… This probe is not really a weeklong investigation. The vote on cloture could be Friday.”

Filed Under: Senate Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh

Where Kavanaugh’s Testimony Was Wrong

September 30, 2018 at 8:30 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The Washington Post documents where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee was either wrong or misleading.

Filed Under: Senate Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh

Kavanaugh Accuser Faced Own Misconduct Charges

September 29, 2018 at 11:05 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Julie Swetnick, one of the women accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, faced allegations of her own misconduct during a short stint at a Portland tech company 18 years ago,” the Oregonian reports.

LIn the suit, Webtrends alleged Swetnick claimed to have graduated from Johns Hopkins University but the company said it subsequently learned the school had no record of her attendance.”

“The suit also alleges Swetnick ‘engaged in unwelcome, sexually offensive conduct’ while at Webtrends and ‘made false and retaliatory allegations that other co-workers had engaged in inappropriate conduct toward her.’”

Filed Under: Senate Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh

Yale Classmate Says Kavanaugh Lied at Hearing

September 29, 2018 at 4:37 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Liz Swisher, a former Yale classmate of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, told CNN that she believes he lied under oath when testifying about his drinking to the Senate Judiciary Committee this week.

Said Swisher: “He drank heavily,” adding that he was a “sloppy drunk.”

She went on: “I don’t buy it. That’s not the Brett I knew, as soon as I met him in college. It’s not the Brett I saw during four years at Yale. And I don’t think many of his answers were credible. To lie under oath, to lie about that, then what else is true?”

Filed Under: Senate Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh

Senator Says Kavanaugh Accuser Has ‘False Memories’

September 29, 2018 at 4:25 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) is dismissing the Senate Judiciary Committee testimony of Christine Blasey Ford about her alleged assault years ago by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, USA Today reports.

Asked what he believes motivated Ford to testify this week, Johnson responded: “Read about false memories. Read about people who have actually confessed to crimes and then later proven totally innocent, OK?”

Filed Under: Senate Tagged With: Brett Kavanaugh, Ron Johnson

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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