Tag: U.S. Supreme Court

Kavanaugh accuser breaks silence over sexual misconduct allegations

The woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct has identified herself and is speaking publicly about her allegations against Kavanaugh for the first time, according to a Washington Post investigation published Sunday.

Christine Blasey Ford, now a 51-year-old professor at Palo Alto University in California, described an incident between the two in high school, alleging that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed one summer in the 1980s and forced himself on her.

Ford told the Post that Kavanaugh “groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it.”

View the complete September 16 article by Michael Burke on the Hill website here.

Want to Know More About: The Kavanaugh Supreme Court Screening

John Dickerson: “The Woman Who’s Accuse Of Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh Of Sexual Assault Is Demanding An Investigation Before She Testifies On Capitol Hill.” DICKERSON: “The woman who’s accuse of supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault is demanding an investigation before she testifies on capitol hill. Christine blasey Ford says the FBI should look into her allegation that Kavanaugh assaulted her more than 35 years ago before she appears before the senate judiciary committee.” [This Morning, CBS, 9/19/18; VIDEO]

John Berman: “Republican Leaders In The Senate Are Refusing To Allow Any Other Witnesses At A Hearing Including The Man That Professor Blasey Ford Was In The Room During The Assault.”[New Day, CNN, 9/19/18; VIDEO]

Abby Phillip: “There Are A Lot Of Ways In Which On The Republican Side They Are Demonstrating […] They Don’t Necessarily Want To Look Into It Particularly Deeply” PHILLIP: “there are a lot of ways in which on the Republican side they are demonstrating even if they don’t want the FBI to look into it, they don’t necessarily want to look into it particularly deeply, and that’s why Ford is sort of backing off of this process because even in the Anita hill case, there were so many other witnesses called to testify as part of the process, and in this case the one-on-one is exactly what the white house wants, they think the he said-she said will be a wash in the court of public opinion clearing the way for Republican centers to take a vote on this in a fairly guilt-free manner.” [New Day, CNN, 9/19/18; VIDEO]

Cynthia Alksne: “The Idea That The FBI Is Not Capable Of Investigating This Is Ridiculous.” CAMEROTA: “Cynthia, do you believe that the FBI should re-open a background check?” ALKSNE: “Absolutely. The FBI, the idea that the FBI is not capable of investigating this is ridiculous. Who is surprised that the president of the United States who has been accused of numerous sexual assault doesn’t want the FBI doing the investigation, they do all kinds of sex trafficking investigations and they have people that specialize in this type.” [New Day, CNN, 9/19/18; VIDEO] Continue reading “Want to Know More About: The Kavanaugh Supreme Court Screening”

What we know about the explosive letter accusing Kavanaugh of attempted sexual assault

Dianne Feinstein shared it with the FBI this week.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley and ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein  Credit: Drew Angerer, Getty Images

The New Yorker published an explosive report on Friday about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, saying that a woman has accused him of trying to force himself on her when he was in high school.

The allegation was the latest development in a saga that played out on Capitol Hill all week involving a letter that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) sent to the FBI but was reluctant to discuss in public.

The letter, as reported by the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer, is from a woman who described an encounter with Kavanaugh at a party in high school. He held her down and tried to force himself on her, covering her mouth. She was able to escape, but the encounter was “a source of ongoing distress for her,” Farrow and Mayer wrote.

View the complete September 14 article by Li Zhou on the Vox.com website here.

Want to Know More About: The Brett Kavanaugh Nomination

Nancy Cordes: “Remember, The Make-Up Of The Supreme Court Is Hanging In The Balance Here. The Stakes Could Not Be Higher.” NANCY CORDES: “Remember, the make-up of the supreme court is hanging in the balance here. The stakes could not be higher. So far, the senate judiciary committee has invited two witnesses. Ford, who says that Kavanaugh attempted to rape her, and Kavanaugh, who says it never happened.” [CBS This Morning, CBS, 9/18/18; Video]

Nancy Cordes: “Republican Leaders Agreed To Hold The High-Stakes Hearing After Prodding From Democrats And Some Of Their Own Members.” [CBS This Morning, CBS, 9/18/18; Video]

Nancy Cordes: “21 Senators, 17 Men And Four Women, Will Have A Chance To Question California Psychologist Christine Blasey Ford.” NANCY CORDES: “21 senators, 17 men and four women, will have a chance to question California psychologist Christine Blasey Ford about her claim that Brett Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, put his hand over her mouth, and groped her at a high school party in the early 1980s.” [CBS This Morning, CBS, 9/18/18; Video] Continue reading “Want to Know More About: The Brett Kavanaugh Nomination”

New Documents: Kavanaugh Lied Under Oath, Refuses To Say If It’s An Impeachable Offense

Newly released emails, which Republicans tried to keep secret, revealed that Kavanaugh potentially lied under oath. In his written Q&A, he refused to answer whether lying under oath is an impeachable offense for a judge. We now know Kavanaugh has misled the Senate and the American people multiple times. What else are Republicans hiding?

Newly released emails show that Kavanaugh misled the Senate, while under oath, about his involvement in a controversial court nomination.

Politico: “In 2006, Brett Kavanaugh told a Senate committee that he wasn’t ‘primarily’ involved in shepherding the nomination of controversial circuit court nominee Charles Pickering when Kavanaugh worked in the George W. Bush White House. But emails released Wednesday show that Kavanaugh conducted meetings with Republican senators and was closely engaged in Pickering’s nomination.” Continue reading “New Documents: Kavanaugh Lied Under Oath, Refuses To Say If It’s An Impeachable Offense”

‘He Should Clearly Be Impeached’: Victim in Stolen Memos Case Tied to Brett Kavanaugh Says the Nominee Perjured Himself

The following article by Cody Fendwick was posted on the AlterNet website September 7, 2018:

“But he lied. Under oath. And he did so repeatedly.”

Credit: Saul Loeb, AFP, Getty Images

In a tightly argued and powerful article for Slate, a Democrat who was one of the victims of a document theft related to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s time in the White House argued Friday that the judge should be impeached.

Kavanaugh, Lisa Graves argued, repeatedly lied to Congress under oath about his involvement with the stolen materials.

She noted that just receiving the documents, which she says were taken by GOP Senate aide Manuel Miranda ,isn’t an impeachable offense. Graves said that Miranda stole the “confidential memos, letters, and talking points,” some of which she personally wrote, which were part of the Democrats’ private communications about blocking President George W. Bush’s controversial judicial nominees. Some of this material was passed on to Kavanaugh, though he says he wasn’t aware that the documents were stolen.

View the complete article here.

Senator Collins: Kavanaugh Not Being Truthful ‘A Major Problem’

Senator Collins said that if Kavanaugh was not truthful at his hearings then that would be a “major problem.” She also previously said that a Supreme Court justice who would overturn Roe v. Wade would “not be acceptable.” Therefore, based on her own standards, Senator Collins should oppose Kavanaugh’s confirmation. See for yourself:

Senator Collins said that if Kavanaugh was not truthful at his hearing then that would be a “major problem.”

Senator Collins: “If in fact (Kavanaugh) was not truthful, then obviously that would be a major problem for me.”

Continue reading “Senator Collins: Kavanaugh Not Being Truthful ‘A Major Problem’”

The apathy in the media regarding Brett Kavanaugh is a national scandal

The following article by Julie Millican was posted on the MediaMatters.org website September 6, 2018:

Credit: Melissa Joskow, Media Matters

Picture this: A controversial, deeply unpopular president mired in scandal makes a Supreme Court nomination that his party is desperately trying to jam through the process before virtually anything is known about the nominee. Then, in the middle of it, an anonymous senior official in the president’s administration pens an op-ed in The New York Times that lays out serious questions about the president’s fitness for office and the dangers he poses to the country. You’d think that conversation in the media would focus on the fact that this president — who is so unstable that his own senior staff members are sounding the alarm — is about to make a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.

You’d be wrong.

Let’s start at the beginning. In late June, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, and President Donald Trump moved quickly to nominate Brett Kavanaugh — a former George W. Bush administration official who currently sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — to replace him. Kavanaugh’s path to confirmation has carried all the hallmarks of the Trump administration: conflicts of interest, unprecedented secrecy, violations of norms, whiffs of corruption, and lies.

View the complete article here.

Democrat Leahy Just Hinted at a Smoking Gun to Kavanaugh Perjury Before the Senate in Hidden Documents

The following article by Joan McCarter with Daily Kos was posted on the AlterNet.org website September 5, 2018:

“I’m concerned because there is evidence that Mr. Miranda provided you with materials that were stolen from me.”

Credit: Global News YouTube Screengrab

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) used those reams of hidden and confidential documents related to Supreme Court nominee’s Brett Kavanaugh tenure with the George W. Bush administration to the best use he could Wednesday. The line of questioning goes back to 2004, when a senior staffer for then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist stole emails and memos from Judiciary Committee senators, including Leahy about their opposition to Bush’s judicial nominees.

The staffer, Manuel Miranda, shared the memos with Republican senators and with the White House where at the time, Kavanaugh was shepherding judicial nominees through the confirmation process. Leahy pressed Kavanaugh, who initially insisted that he didn’t know the information he received from Miranda was stolen. This was a line of questioning for which Kavanaugh was clearly not prepared. Leahy pressed him, asking whether Kavanaugh though it was “at all unusual to receive a draft letter from Democratic senators to each other before any mention of it was made public?”

Here’s where we get to the potential perjury Kavanaugh committed before the Senate Judiciary Committee previously. There is apparently evidence in the materials that Grassley has marked “Committee Confidential” that would show it. Leahy says so: “I’m concerned because there is evidence that Mr. Miranda provided you with materials that were stolen from me. And that would contradict your prior testimony… there is no reason [those emails] can’t be made public.”

View the complete article here.

Kavanaugh advised against calling Roe v. Wade ‘settled law’ while a White House lawyer

The following article by Robert Barnes and Michael Kranish was posted on the Washington Post website September 6, 2018:

During his confirmation hearing for the D.C. Circuit in 2006, Brett Kavanaugh said, “I would follow Roe v. Wade faithfully and fully.” (C-SPAN)

Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as a White House lawyer in the Bush administration advised against referring to the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade as the “settled law of the land,” according to a 2003 email.

“I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so,” Kavanaugh wrote after reviewing a draft of what was intended to be an op-ed in favor of a judicial nominee.

The email was first given to the New York Times and has since been made public by the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was among emails deemed “committee confidential” and not made public, although it was unclear what it was about the memo that prevented its earlier release.

View the complete article here.