When Does Brett Kavanaugh Testify Again

Christine Blasey Ford is sworn in before testifying in forepart of the Senate Judiciary Commission on September 27, 2018.

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The Ford-Kavanaugh sexual attack hearings, explained

If you want to know why women don't come up forward with allegations of sexual assault, today's Senate hearings offered a inkling.

By Updated Sep 28, 2018, 7:56am EDT

If you want to know why women don't come up frontward with allegations of sexual assault, Thursday's Senate hearings offered a clue.

In the forenoon, an all-male panel of Republican senators hired an outside prosecutor to try to pick apart Christine Blasey Ford'south brownie live on national television. They refused to subpoena Marker Judge, the key witness, or launch the FBI investigation Ford asked for. And after hearing her testimony, and judging it credible, they only ignored information technology.

In the afternoon, those same senators feted Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the man Ford defendant of attacking her. They cut off the prosecutor they hired in lodge to requite spoken language after speech lamenting the fashion he and his family unit have suffered. They said they didn't question that Ford'southward assail was real, only perhaps her retention was flawed; whoever had assaulted her, could she really be trusted to say information technology was Kavanaugh?

Merely Kavanaugh's retentiveness was across reproach. After calling in professional aid to cross-examine Ford, they cut her off when she began to question Kavanaugh, and repeatedly apologized for troubling him and his family with all this mess.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, delivered an unforgettable performance. He was silent during Ford's testimony, freely yielding his time to prosecutor Rachel Mitchell. During Kavanaugh'due south testimony, nevertheless, Graham buoyed the witness and ripped into the Democrats. "This is hell," he told Kavanaugh. The hearings were "the nigh unethical sham" he'd seen in his decades-long political career.

Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) during his fourth dimension to question Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

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"To my Republican colleagues," Graham spat, "if you vote no, you're legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics."

But the Ford-Kavanaugh hearings played out in a larger context. Since the dawn of the #MeToo movement, the question has been when the backlash would come, and what form it would take.

You could feel it building earlier in the week. The media was reverberating later Ian Buruma, the editor of the New York Review of Books, was fired for overruling his staff and publishing a Jian Ghomeshi essay almost how dozens of allegations of sexual assault and harassment against him had unfairly derailed his career. Harper's published a like essay at around the same time, and was too pounded for it. The terror that women's accusations were unjustly ending men's careers — and that there was nothing men could do about information technology — was boiling over. But someone needed to take a stand, and be backed up by enough power to survive that stand.

In retrospect, it makes perfect sense that President Donald Trump would exist the one who would provide the playbook. Afterward all, he'due south been the groovy scourge of the #MeToo moment, the one whose misdeeds have never hurt him.

On Midweek, Trump gave a printing conference where he took direct aim at #MeToo. "When you are guilty until proven innocent, it's just not supposed to be that style," he said. "That'due south a very dangerous standard for the country." That night, CNN reported that a concerned Trump had told Kavanaugh that the time for calm denials was over; he needed to continue criminal offense.

Then he did. Information technology was the moment the #MeToo backlash truly took shape.

Christine Blasey Ford'south gutting testimony

If Ford and her husband had never remodeled their house, Brett Kavanaugh'due south Supreme Court nomination would have sailed through the Senate.

Co-ordinate to Ford's testimony, she had never told anyone of her sexual assault in particular. That changed in 2012, when she and her husband were redoing their domicile and she insisted on having a second front door — a second manner out of the house. Her married man couldn't understand; the asking seemed ridiculous. Why does a house need ii ways out?

During a session with their couples therapist, Ford explained, information technology all spilled out. She had been assaulted as a teenager. She was pushed into a room and nearly raped. Her attacker, whom she recalled then and at present as Kavanaugh, clapped his hand across her oral cavity when she screamed, pushing down and then tightly she couldn't exhale, so tightly she thought he might kill her by accident.

Christine Blasey Ford during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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He was laughing. His friend Mark Judge was laughing. That's what she remembers virtually of all, she says — the laughter. At some signal, they tumbled off the bed and she fled the room, locking herself in a bathroom until she heard them go back downstairs and their voices receded. And then she ran from the firm, terrified she'd run into them on the style out and the attack would brainstorm again.

That'southward why she needed a second door in her house, she explained. Because in a moment of trauma, she had needed some other way out, and xxx years later, at that place was notwithstanding a role of her that couldn't be comfy, that couldn't feel rubber, without some other mode out. That's why there's a tape from 2012, when her therapist wrote down what Ford said; when her husband offset heard Kavanaugh's name. That'south why her allegation was taken seriously.

That's the story, through tears, that Ford told the Senate and the country on Thursday.

"I am here today not because I want to be," she said. "I am terrified. I am here considering I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me with Brett."

Ford's testimony was — by wide acclaim — powerful, specific, and gutting. She was a friendly witness, trying to respond questions, asking repeatedly for an investigation to help clear the holes in her ain retention, thanking the committee for the consideration they gave her. Her expertise as a professor of clinical psychology kept shining through as she offered articulate, powerful explanations of how trauma worked on the brain, how it had worked on her brain.

Mitchell, the prosecutor, largely abased the task of questioning the core of Ford's account. She ended up harassing Ford on points that even Republicans thought modest, like why her fear of flying hadn't prevented her from taking past vacations, and who paid for a $200 polygraph test.

Ford was such a strong witness, in fact, that the fear was she had set an unreachable standard. "Through no fault of her ain, she has as well reinforced the incredibly high bar of believability," wrote BuzzFeed'southward Anne Helen Petersen:

Ford is white, upper-middle form, married, and highly educated. She is calm but demure. She is visibly shaken notwithstanding steady. She could afford the therapy that helped document her psychological past. She has a support system and the means to hire a lawyer. Imagine if you lack fifty-fifty one of these qualities. Imagine if your beliefs, or your voice, or your face, or the life you've lived doesn't perfectly friction match what is demanded of the ideal victim. Would you be believed?

"Were men out there brought to tears or shaking visceral response by that?" asked New York magazine's Rebecca Traister. "Because the messages I have from women, and what's happening in my own apartment, suggest that many many women were."

Even Fox News was impressed. "This is a disaster for the Republicans," said Fox News's Chris Wallace.

And then information technology was Kavanaugh'south turn.

Christine Blasey Ford finishing her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Melina Mara-Pool/Getty Images

Brett Kavanaugh strikes dorsum

If Ford did everything — and more — that could exist asked of a witness, Kavanaugh did something well-nigh the contrary. He entered the hearing with his jaw set and his confront flushed. His voice a near shout, he read a long, angry, unflinching, and notably Trumpish statement.

"This whole 2-calendar week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political striking," he raged, "fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 ballot, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from exterior left-wing opposition groups. This is a circus."

Kavanaugh's anger worked. Just equally Ford fit society'south expectations for a victim, Kavanaugh looked like a man falsely defendant: furious, fearful, tearing upwards when he mentioned his parents or his daughters. He laced into his tormentors, determined to articulate his name. He gave no ground. He badgered and interrupted the Democrats questioning him.

Supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies earlier the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018.

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And in his pain, his outrage, the assembled Republican senators constitute their vocalisation. Initially, they left their questioning — equally they had with Ford — to Mitchell, the outside prosecutor. But after Graham refused to yield his time, choosing instead to apologize to Kavanaugh and cutting into the Democrats, then too did every Republican after him. And one after the other, they apologized to Kavanaugh.

"Judge, I tin can't think of a more embarrassing scandal for the United states of america Senate since the McCarthy hearings," said Sen. John Cornyn.

The Democrats "have brought the states to our worst in our politics," apologized Sen. Orrin Hatch. "Information technology's certainly brought united states of america no closer to the truth."

"This could accept been handled in such a way that didn't turn this into a circus, one that has turned your life update down and your family and the life of Dr. Ford upside down," said Sen. Mike Lee. "I consider this most unfortunate."

Simply it was Sen. John Kennedy, the terminal questioner, who truly laid everything blank.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) listens to Kavanaugh as he testifies.

Tom Williams (Pool)/AP

"I'm sorry, Judge, for what you and your family unit accept been through, and I'1000 sorry for what Dr. Ford and her family have been through," he said. "Information technology could have been avoided." And then he asked: "Practise you believe in God?"

Kavanaugh said that he did.

"I'm going to give you a last opportunity correct here, correct in front of God and country," Kennedy said. "I want you to look me in the heart. Are Dr. Ford'south allegations true?"

Kavanaugh looked him in the eye. "They're not accurate as to me. I have non questioned that she might take been sexually assaulted at some signal in her life by someone someplace. But as to me, I've never done this."

"None of these allegations are true?" Kennedy asked.

"Correct," Kavanaugh said.

"No doubt in your mind?"

"Zero. 100 percent certain."

"Not even a scintilla?"

"Non a scintilla. 100 percent certain, Senator."

"Practise yous swear to God?"

"I swear to God."

"That's all I have, Judge," Kennedy said. And, with that, the hearing was over.

Whom practice we believe, and when

The 24-hour interval played out similar a set slice. In the forenoon, Ford showed how high the bar was to even take a chance of being believed. Her story is specific, credible, serious. She's told it to multiple people over the years. She tried to tell it to Congress before Kavanaugh was nominated. She places Kavanaugh in the town he lived, at the business firm of a person he knew, in a room with one of his all-time friends. She tried her best to exist polite to the senators, to avoid offense, to show gratitude to the commission for listening to her. She took a polygraph, begged for an FBI investigation. She says she's 100 percent sure information technology was Kavanaugh who attacked her.

Ford is greeted by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hullo), and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), left, during a break in her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27, 2018.

Andrew Harnik (Pool)/Getty Images

In the afternoon, Kavanaugh simply denied all charges. He denied ever being blackout drunk. He denied ever forgetting anything of importance. He denied the possibility he was wrong, that it might exist useful for his alleged cohort Mark Judge to testify or for the FBI to investigate. He said Ford's memory had failed her just was incredulous at the idea that his think could deliver a similar error.

And he fought back. He slammed his accusers; he fabricated clear his pain, his rage. If Ford was grateful for the opportunity to be heard, Kavanaugh was incredulous that she was being given that opportunity, that information technology was taking this long, that information technology could possibly take longer.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh testifies during the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Tom Williams-Pool/CQ Roll Call

Asked why the commission couldn't have another week to investigate the claims more than thoroughly, he shot dorsum, "Every day has been a lifetime." His suffering was immense, unfair, unforgivable. "I'm never going to get my reputation back," he said. "My life is totally and permanently altered."

The suffering of his accusers, women who say they've been living with the trauma of what he did for decades? They were mistaken, and their claims could be, should be, for the good of the county had to be, dismissed. "This grotesque character assassination will dissuade competent and skillful people of all political persuasions from serving our land," he said.

The feminist philosopher Kate Manne coined the term "himpathy" to describe the "trend to dismiss the female person perspective birthday, to empathize with the powerful man over his less powerful alleged female victim." What Kavanaugh did today was activate the Republican Party's powerful sense of himpathy: His suffering was the question, and Ford's suffering, to say nil of any farther search for the truth, slipped soundlessly below the h2o.

We concluded the 24-hour interval in much the same place nosotros started: his word confronting hers. But even as everyone agreed Ford's discussion was credible, it didn't matter. There was still Kavanaugh's word. And it appeared, for Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, that that was plenty. She was 100 percent sure and he was 100 percentage sure, only it was his 100 percent certain that mattered.

On this, Trump was right. What Kavanaugh had needed to practice was continue the offensive. He needed to remind the all-male Republican panel that he was the victim here, that whatever of them could be victims, that moving his nomination forward would be a testify of force, a message sent to the Democrats and their allies, a argument that these tactics end hither and they cease at present. This is how you fight #MeToo: by focusing on the hurting information technology's causing men, by centering their suffering.

All of this was, perhaps, anticipated. On Wednesday, a new NPR/Marist poll found that while large majorities of Democrats and independents believed Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination should be rejected if Christine Blasey Ford's allegations are true, a majority of Republicans believed Kavanaugh should exist confirmed even if Ford's allegations are true. If Thursday'southward hearing didn't ultimately seem to be about the truth at all, well, perhaps that'southward why: The truth was never really what Senate Republicans were afterwards.

By the end of the day, Trump was thrilled. "Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him," he tweeted before long after the hearing concluded. "The Senate must vote!"

Flowers and notes supporting Ford sit down on the steps of the Supreme Court on September 27, 2018.

Zach Gibson/Getty Images

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Source: https://www.vox.com/explainers/2018/9/27/17909782/brett-kavanaugh-christine-ford-supreme-court-senate-sexual-assault-testimony

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