As Ford's lawyer revealed that she has been subject to threats serious enough that she and her family have had to leave their home, President Donald Trump expressed great sympathy for Judge Kavanaugh, lamenting that "This is a man who does not deserve this."
Yeah, we can understand why Ford is reluctant to show up at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Monday designed to produce a he-said-she-said spectacle controlled by Republicans who have already made abundantly clear that they believe Kavanaugh, not her.
Ford has produced what documentation she realistically could - notes from a therapist she told about the alleged attack in 2012, a polygraph test she took testifying to the truth of her account - but absent any other attempt to determine the facts, she would be just as painfully alone in such a hearing as she says she was the night she locked herself in a bathroom to protect herself from a drunken 17-year-old Kavanaugh and his friend.
In the immediate aftermath of Ford's decision to tell her story on the record to the Washington Post, a handful of Republican senators insisted that the rush to confirm Kavanaugh be halted so the Senate could hear from Ford.
Sen. Jeff Flake, he of the post-retirement-announcement pleas for honor and civility on the Senate floor, initially insisted that he would not vote yes on Kavanaugh before hearing from Ford.
After Judge Kavanaugh's Potemkin confirmation hearings in which Republican senators made the minimum possible display of vetting his record without risking the possibility that the public might find out anything of substance about how he would exercise the great power that comes with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, we perhaps should not have even dared to hope that the Judiciary Committee would conduct any serious investigation of Ford's accusations.
We do not envy the choice Ford faces - testify Monday in a hearing she knows is a sham or refuse and face even greater opprobrium than she has already endured.
https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article218781310.html
Yeah, we can understand why Ford is reluctant to show up at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Monday designed to produce a he-said-she-said spectacle controlled by Republicans who have already made abundantly clear that they believe Kavanaugh, not her.
Ford has produced what documentation she realistically could - notes from a therapist she told about the alleged attack in 2012, a polygraph test she took testifying to the truth of her account - but absent any other attempt to determine the facts, she would be just as painfully alone in such a hearing as she says she was the night she locked herself in a bathroom to protect herself from a drunken 17-year-old Kavanaugh and his friend.
In the immediate aftermath of Ford's decision to tell her story on the record to the Washington Post, a handful of Republican senators insisted that the rush to confirm Kavanaugh be halted so the Senate could hear from Ford.
Sen. Jeff Flake, he of the post-retirement-announcement pleas for honor and civility on the Senate floor, initially insisted that he would not vote yes on Kavanaugh before hearing from Ford.
After Judge Kavanaugh's Potemkin confirmation hearings in which Republican senators made the minimum possible display of vetting his record without risking the possibility that the public might find out anything of substance about how he would exercise the great power that comes with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, we perhaps should not have even dared to hope that the Judiciary Committee would conduct any serious investigation of Ford's accusations.
We do not envy the choice Ford faces - testify Monday in a hearing she knows is a sham or refuse and face even greater opprobrium than she has already endured.
https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article218781310.html
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