New sexual assault claims against Brett Kavanugh NYT

[PainRack]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.axios. ... b80f1.html

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was publicly accused of another sexual misconduct allegation Saturday, which was allegedly reported to the FBI during his 2018 confirmation process but not investigated by the bureau, the New York Times reports.

Details: The Times writes that Max Stier, who runs a nonprofit in D.C., was a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh's when he saw "Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student." The story was corroborated with 2 officials who communicated with him, according to the NYT.

This was reported DURING the hearings and the FBI sat on it ?

WTF?

[Ralin]

Truly, America needs more left-wing political violence. Because this man and most like him will never be punished legally.

[The Romulan Republic]

Truly, America needs more left-wing political violence. Because this man and most like him will never be punished legally.

If we had the majority of both Houses, it would be entirely possible to impeach Kavanaugh- if not for the rape then for perjury during his confirmation hearings (which he, you know, did live on camera).

Also, that sounds very much like you are making a thinly-veiled advocation of the assassination of a Supreme Court Justice.

Kavanaugh's scum, but that crosses a line. Reported.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Or alternatively, Ralin is sarcastically venting frustration at the fact that the rich and powerful are basically immune from consequences. I swear, I'm the communist. Shouldn't I be the one who clamps down on people's freedom to bitch? Well, you know what? I'm this board's Volkspolizist now, and I choose to have more grace than that.

Report closed on the grounds of baselessness. Peel your fingers off your pearl necklace.

[Nicholas]

I don't know how far you want to trust this source but it sounds like the alleged victim, who is not the person who reported the incident to the FBI, denies that it ever happened.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/ ... lly-a-dud/

The New York Times Anti-Kavanaugh Bombshell Is Actually a Dud
By John McCormack

September 15, 2019 11:55 AM

The authors omit the fact that the alleged victim has no memory of the alleged incident.

If you opened Twitter on Sunday morning, you were likely greeted with the bombshell headline of the top trending news story: “NYT reporters’ book details new sexual assault allegation against Brett Kavanaugh.”

The allegation, Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly write in a New York Times story adapted from their forthcoming anti-Kavanaugh book, is this: “We also uncovered a previously unreported story about Mr. Kavanaugh in his freshman year that echoes Ms. Ramirez’s allegation. A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.”

Wait a second. Who did what to whom?

Kavanaugh’s “friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student”?

Can someone explain the logistics of the allegation here? Was Kavanaugh allegedly walking around naked when his friends pushed him into the female student?

NOW WATCH: 'Toxic Algae Found in New York City Parks'
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No, if I’m reading Pogrebin and Kelly right, the friends didn’t push Kavanaugh in the back. Rather, the “friends pushed his penis.”

What? How does that happen? Who are the friends? Who is the female student? Were there any witnesses besides Stier?

All that the authors write in the New York Times essay about corroborating the story is this: “Mr. Stier, who runs a nonprofit organization in Washington, notified senators and the F.B.I. about this account, but the F.B.I. did not investigate and Mr. Stier has declined to discuss it publicly. (We corroborated the story with two officials who have communicated with Mr. Stier.)”

So they corroborated the fact that Stier made the allegation to the FBI, but the authors give no indication that they have corroborated any details of the alleged incident.

The book isn’t released until Tuesday, but Mollie Hemingway got a copy, and she writes on Twitter: “The book notes, quietly, that the woman Max Stier named as having been supposedly victimized by Kavanaugh and friends denies any memory of the alleged event.” Omitting this fact from the New York Times story is one of the worst cases of journalistic malpractice in recent memory.

If you take this confusing accusation in the essay at face value, it doesn’t even appear to be an allegation of assault against Kavanaugh.

If Kavanaugh’s “friends pushed his penis,” then isn’t it an allegation of wrongdoing against Kavanaugh’s “friends,” not Kavanaugh himself? Surely even a modern liberal Yalie who’s been to one of those weird non-sexual “naked parties” would recognize both the female student and Kavanaugh are both alleged victims in this alleged incident, barring an additional allegation that a college-aged Kavanaugh asked his “friends” to “push his penis.”

The new allegation is supposed to help lend credence to the on-the-record allegation that Kavanaugh’s Yale classmate Deborah Ramirez made in 2018. Pogrebin and Kelly sum up Ramirez’s allegation: “She and some classmates had been drinking heavily when, she says, a freshman named Brett Kavanaugh pulled down his pants and thrust his penis at her, prompting her to swat it away and inadvertently touch it. Some of the onlookers, who had been passing around a fake penis earlier in the evening, laughed.”

Pogrebin and Kelly downplay Ramirez’s own doubts about whether Kavanaugh did what she now alleges, choosing rather to lard up their New York Times story with details that are supposed to demonstrate how under-privileged Ramirez was: She had to sell ice cream during the summer in high school, bought a cheap car, and only had an above-ground swimming pool as a teenager (the horror).

None of these details corroborates her accusation against Kavanaugh. But the story is framed to make it seem like Kavanaugh was the type of privileged jerk who might expose himself in front of an under-privileged college classmate.

As I wrote last October, here’s why Ramirez’s allegation was dubious:

Deborah Ramirez is the Yale classmate of Kavanaugh’s who now claims that Kavanaugh exposed himself as a college freshman at a party. Ramirez’s claim was already dubious because (1) named eyewitnesses deny the allegation and (2) Ramirez herself wasn’t sure in recent weeks if Kavanaugh had done what she now alleges. “Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself,” the New York Times reported. Ramirez was only willing to make the allegation, the New Yorker reported, after “six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney.”

Pogrebin and Kelly write that a couple of students say they had heard about the alleged incident in the days after it allegedly occurred, but the authors provide no indication there is any first-hand witness to corroborate the allegation.
74

We already knew before Kavanaugh was confirmed last October that the “corroborating” source for Ramirez’s claim, classmate Kenneth Appold, was not present when the alleged incident occurred, but Appold told the New Yorker he was “one-hundred-percent-sure” he heard about it from an eyewitness. Shortly before Kavanaugh was confirmed, the New Yorker reported that Appold’s supposed eyewitness “said that he had no memory of the incident.”

Maybe Pogrebin and Kelly’s book is stronger than their essay. But I’m skeptical. “In the end they turn up no smoking gun,” Hanna Rosin writes in her New York Times review of the book.

[DesertFly]

You know, posting an opinion piece from a well-known conservative site (i.e., will happily distort the truth and outright lie to get the "proper" narrative out) is not as convincing as you seem to think it is.

[The Romulan Republic]

You know, posting an opinion piece from a well-known conservative site (i.e., will happily distort the truth and outright lie to get the "proper" narrative out) is not as convincing as you seem to think it is.

Yeah.

I don't know what Nicholas's political views are, I don't think we've ever interacted much, but I've noticed that a lot of people, even otherwise liberal people, even on a board that leans radical Leftist like this one, will suddenly become conservatives when the issue of believing rape victims is raised.

Let's get to the point: a lot of men, even ones who aren't rapists themselves, who do not think of themselves as defending rape, are deeply, deeply threatened by the notion of a society where women can hold powerful men to account. I've come to believe that that, even more than racism or any economic concerns, is probably the driving force behind the rise of the Alt. Reich. For tens of thousands of years, in most parts of the world, men have been taught that they belong on top, and that they have the right to sex, and this has been deeply ingrained into society, in part because it connects very easily with the outdated monkey instincts of our subconscious minds. The Bible, surely the most widely-read work in human history, the primary cultural foundation of the dominant global civilization dating back thousands of years, portrays the first woman as the original sinner, the one who lead a pure man astray and doomed all of humanity to sin and suffering and damnation. That is the starting point of the human story according to the world's most dominant mythology. Traditional gender roles and gender bias are in many ways being challenged, but in many others are still largely taken for granted. Even in less obvious ways you will see this- in the skewing of crash test data that results in more women dying in car crashes, or in the reluctance to perform CPR that leads to much higher death rates for female victims of cardiac arrest. Its everywhere. Even something seemingly small reinforces how deeply misogyny is ingrained- just compare the difference in how people react to the use of the word n***er (which I can't even post uncensored, even in the context of a discussion or analysis, without risking a ban) to how they react to the words "bitch" or "cunt". The idea that men are supposed to be dominant, and that women are devious manipulators who tempt and destroy men, are profoundly ingrained in our collective consciousness. And lest anyone think I am "virtue signalling", I don't claim to be immune to this bias and misogyny, not at all- merely more self-aware than most. I'm also not a woman, and I'm by no means the best person to talk about this. But because I am aware of it, I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about it. Because it really needs to be talked about. Again, and again, and again, until it is drilled into the heads of every single person on this planet for all time.

For literally thousands of years, across the world, women have been treated as domestic slaves, sexual chattel, second-class citizens or even non-human. People talk about how the US/the West is fundamentally corrupt and evil because it was founded on racism and genocide and slavery, how we need to undergo a process of decolonization and reconciliation. And those were terrible crimes, so terrible that the human mind cannot truly comprehend them if it has not experienced them, just as the ongoing effects of them are today- and yet they don't come close in shear scope to the literal millennia of sexual slavery and violence to which the female gender has been subjected all over the world. There is no other atrocity in human history that comes close. Not slavery, not the Holocaust, nothing. Of course, its not a contest- once you are dealing with evil on that scale, the numbers largely cease to matter. But I make the comparison because the shear scale of what has been inflicted by patriarchy on women is staggering, and yet it is rarely thought of in those terms. Almost nobody thinks about the history of misogyny with the same horror and revulsion with which they think of the Holocaust, and yet they really should be. Nor is this all ancient history, of course. Spousal rape was only made illegal in the US in the fucking '90s, meaning that the majority of living Americans remember a time when a woman's body was legally the property of her husband.

To be honest, there are times that I feel both surprised and grateful that the majority of women aren't engaged in active armed revolt against the male gender, or even seeking our extermination. Not because it would be right or deserved, but because it is often human nature to meet violence with violence, cruelty with cruelty, and prejudice with prejudice. I can be certain that if Right-wing white men experienced a fraction of such persecution, they would unleash a tide of slaughter in retribution. Which no doubt explains at least some of the outrage and protests that arise every time the issue of holding rapists accountable or believing their victims comes up, even from men who aren't themselves racist- it is the existential terror of the master at the thought of what their slaves might do once they're free. It is the same terror that motivated the Confederacy to start a civil war to preserve slavery, and which drives the hatred of the Alt. Reich today.

Its also why, if I ever start to feel that a woman owes me anything, I try to remind that part of my brain to shut the fuck up. The world owes the female gender more than it can ever possibly repay, if we tried for a thousand years.

[Ralin]

If we had the majority of both Houses,

If. We.

it would be entirely possible to impeach Kavanaugh- if not for the rape then for perjury during his confirmation hearings (which he, you know, did live on camera).

No it wouldn't, because he's white and Republican and that means he can flout the law indefinitely and neither party will make any real effort to stop him.

Also

just compare the difference in how people react to the use of the word n***er (which I can't even post uncensored, even in the context of a discussion or analysis, without risking a ban)

That's not true and I'm pretty sure you know that.

[The Romulan Republic]

If. We.

We'll see what happens November 2020. The current Republican control of the Senate is a pretty transitory state of affairs to justify resorting to violence, when there's an election barely a year away.

No it wouldn't, because he's white and Republican and that means he can flout the law indefinitely and neither party will make any real effort to stop him.

"BOTH SIDES, BOTH SIDES!" screamed the third partiers and the Kremlin. And Trump reaped the rewards. After all, if both sides are just as bad, it doesn't really matter if a Nazi rapist wins, does it? The Bernie-or-Busters and the third partiers certainly didn't think so. Of course, I understand why you argue this- you need to demonstrate that political reform is impossible if you wish to justify murder and terrorism as the only option.

There's a reason I hate any equation of the two parties. But this is extremely tangential to the topic of this thread.

Granted, the current Democratic leadership under the current circumstances wouldn't impeach him- but not because he's white or Republican, so much as because they're cowards who allow their judgement to be overly-influenced by the failed Clinton impeachment.

That's not true and I'm pretty sure you know that.

Feel free to ask a mod. In either case, the main point, which is that slurs against women are treated as much less serious in our society than racial slurs, is valid.

Also... that entire post, and that's the one point you think is worth addressing, because you can use it to insinuate that I'm lying about something that doesn't even matter to my overall point? Is this board's knee-jerk hate for me really that strong, that posters are incapable of reading anything I say without immediately drop everything to nitpick any point they possible can to "prove" that I'm lying?

That's both creepy and pathetic.

[Ralin]

We'll see what happens November 2020. The current Republican control of the Senate is a pretty transitory state of affairs to justify resorting to violence, when there's an election barely a year away.

"BOTH SIDES, BOTH SIDES!" screamed the third partiers and the Kremlin. And Trump reaped the rewards. After all, if both sides are just as bad, it doesn't really matter if a Nazi rapist wins, does it? The Bernie-or-Busters and the third partiers certainly didn't think so. Of course, I understand why you argue this- you need to demonstrate that political reform is impossible if you wish to justify murder and terrorism as the only option.

There's a reason I hate any equation of the two parties. But this is extremely tangential to the topic of this thread.

Granted, the current Democratic leadership under the current circumstances wouldn't impeach him- but not because he's white or Republican, so much as because they're cowards who allow their judgement to be overly-influenced by the failed Clinton impeachment.

Democrats aren’t going to impeach him no matter what happens next year. Any more than they pressed charges against Bush and company.

Feel free to ask a mod. In either case, the main point, which is that slurs against women are treated as much less serious in our society than racial slurs, is valid.

I already have. Or least I’ve said something like “Doing the whole N-word convention is stupid and insulting to everyone reading it and it’s never been required here when talking about something that makes it relevant” and Alyrium chimed in agreeing.

Also... that entire post, and that's the one point you think is worth addressing, because you can use it to insinuate that I'm lying about something that doesn't even matter to my overall point? Is this board's knee-jerk hate for me really that strong, that posters are incapable of reading anything I say without immediately drop everything to nitpick any point they possible can to "prove" that I'm lying?

That's both creepy and pathetic.

Personally I’ve always thought it seemed obvious that terms aren’t magically made less offensive by substituting some asterisks and letting people fill in the blanks and that most people here would see it that way. But fine, sorry, I shouldn’t have jumped to assuming you would realize that.

[Nicholas]

You know, posting an opinion piece from a well-known conservative site (i.e., will happily distort the truth and outright lie to get the "proper" narrative out) is not as convincing as you seem to think it is.

The source does raise questions about the reliability of its fact claims but there are two fact claims there that seem really important to the reliability of this story.

1) That the Times article is intended to promote a newly released book.
2) That the alleged victim does not remember the incident.

I found another source to collaborate those two claims. Fox news has a long article here: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nyt-ka ... mpeachment

The relevant passage is an editorial note that the New York Times attached to their article which started this thread. The editorial note reads:

"Editors' Note: An earlier version of this article, which was adapted from a forthcoming book, did not include one element of the book's account regarding an assertion by a Yale classmate that friends of Brett Kavanaugh pushed his penis into the hand of a female student at a drunken dorm party. The book reports that the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident. That information has been added to the article."

Nicholas

[DesertFly]

You know, posting an opinion piece from a well-known conservative site (i.e., will happily distort the truth and outright lie to get the "proper" narrative out) is not as convincing as you seem to think it is.

The source does raise questions about the reliability of its fact claims but there are two fact claims there that seem really important to the reliability of this story.

1) That the Times article is intended to promote a newly released book.
2) That the alleged victim does not remember the incident.

I found another source to collaborate those two claims. Fox news has a long article here: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nyt-ka ... mpeachment

The relevant passage is an editorial note that the New York Times attached to their article which started this thread. The editorial note reads:

"Editors' Note: An earlier version of this article, which was adapted from a forthcoming book, did not include one element of the book's account regarding an assertion by a Yale classmate that friends of Brett Kavanaugh pushed his penis into the hand of a female student at a drunken dorm party. The book reports that the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident. That information has been added to the article."

Nicholas

Really? You responded to my point that you had posted an article from a conservative (read: lying) source by posting a link to the most well-known lying source? Try again.

As to the NYT note, the fact that the victim doesn't want to come forward after watching Dr. Blasey Ford get roasted for daring to accuse the same rich white man is not relevant.

Also, they were all at a heavy-drinking college party. She may have been blackout drunk and not remember it, but that's also irrelevant. Sexual assault is still sexual assault, even if the victim is not conscious or aware of it, and the predators who do it need to be held to task. Even if she was blackout drunk, it doesn't excuse anything or make her less of a victim. What if she had merely taken the wrong combination of (prescribed) medications and was temporarily unable to form long-term memories. That happens occasionally, and if you think it would be wrong to rape someone then, it definitely is wrong, no matter what their impairment stems from.

[Nicholas]

You know, posting an opinion piece from a well-known conservative site (i.e., will happily distort the truth and outright lie to get the "proper" narrative out) is not as convincing as you seem to think it is.

The source does raise questions about the reliability of its fact claims but there are two fact claims there that seem really important to the reliability of this story.

1) That the Times article is intended to promote a newly released book.
2) That the alleged victim does not remember the incident.

I found another source to collaborate those two claims. Fox news has a long article here: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nyt-ka ... mpeachment

The relevant passage is an editorial note that the New York Times attached to their article which started this thread. The editorial note reads:

"Editors' Note: An earlier version of this article, which was adapted from a forthcoming book, did not include one element of the book's account regarding an assertion by a Yale classmate that friends of Brett Kavanaugh pushed his penis into the hand of a female student at a drunken dorm party. The book reports that the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident. That information has been added to the article."

Nicholas

Really? You responded to my point that you had posted an article from a conservative (read: lying) source by posting a link to the most well-known lying source? Try again.

As to the NYT note, the fact that the victim doesn't want to come forward after watching Dr. Blasey Ford get roasted for daring to accuse the same rich white man is not relevant.

Also, they were all at a heavy-drinking college party. She may have been blackout drunk and not remember it, but that's also irrelevant. Sexual assault is still sexual assault, even if the victim is not conscious or aware of it, and the predators who do it need to be held to task. Even if she was blackout drunk, it doesn't excuse anything or make her less of a victim. What if she had merely taken the wrong combination of (prescribed) medications and was temporarily unable to form long-term memories. That happens occasionally, and if you think it would be wrong to rape someone then, it definitely is wrong, no matter what their impairment stems from.

So, a man at a party saw something that he thinks is non-consensual sexual contact between several people, therefor the rich white man is guilty of sexual assault. If that is your standard of proof for sexual assault we have nothing to talk about because that is so ridiculous that I can't make a rational response to it.

Nicholas

[The Romulan Republic]

Some of the Democratic leadership have weighed in on the push to impeach Kavanaugh:

Top leaders are mostly anti-impeachment, some quite dismissively, though at least one Democratic rep. is introducing a motion to impeach Kavanaugh, and others, including leading Presidential candidates Warren and Harris, have endorsed either impeachment or an inquiry.

https://politico.com/story/2019/09/16/d ... ls-1499444

Senior Democrats are moving quickly to snuff out calls to impeach Brett Kavanaugh, arguing those tactics are unrealistic and politically harmful.

Democrats are already wrestling with whether to try to oust President Donald Trump, and leadership sees little room for the party to take on a second divisive impeachment saga barely a year before the presidential election. So the demands by 2020 presidential contenders to remove the Supreme Court justice, on the heels of new reporting about allegations of sexual misconduct, are getting panned.

“Get real,” as Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) put it Monday afternoon.

“We’ve got to get beyond this ‘impeachment is the answer to every problem.’ It’s not realistic,” Durbin said. “If that’s how we are identified in Congress, as the impeachment Congress, we run the risk that people will feel we’re ignoring the issues that mean a lot to them as families.”

Except for Kavanaugh’s lone Democratic supporter, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Democratic lawmakers were livid about reports that the FBI did not thoroughly investigate two allegations against Kavanaugh. Many called for new probes into the Department of Justice, some demanded the FBI take up the matter and others hoped the House Judiciary Committee would begin some sort of investigation.

But the debate over impeachment may quickly come to a head.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) said she will file an impeachment resolution on Tuesday, arguing that “Kavanaugh’s confirmation process set a dangerous precedent. We must demand justice for survivors and hold Kavanaugh accountable for his actions.”

The two-page resolution calls on the House Judiciary Committee to investigate whether Kavanaugh should be impeached, according to a draft obtained by POLITICO. The resolution grants the committee subpoena power in any impeachment inquiry of Kavanaugh.

It’s going to land like a thud in the Capitol’s leadership suites and with much of the party.

“Mitch McConnell would block any impeachment. So that’s a moot point,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), a former Judiciary chairman. He said the lesson to be learned is not to rush lifetime confirmations: “Don’t ever let those mistakes happen again.” Until Democrats take back the Senate, however, there’s little they can do to halt McConnell on nominations.

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House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler similarly dismissed the idea of an impeachment inquiry, arguing in a radio interview Monday that the committee is “concentrating our resources on determining whether to impeach the president.” The New York Democrat said it’s one thing for progressives to call for impeachment but for him “it’s a consequential action, which we have to be able to justify.”

Those remarks amounted to a blow to presidential candidates, prominent liberal lawmakers and progressive activists who called for Congress to take steps to remove Kavanaugh. Among those pushing for impeachment or at least an inquiry included 2020 aspirants like Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris as well as Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).

“I’m pretty sure Jerry Nadler cares if somebody, particularly somebody is getting a lifetime appointment, whether that person lied to Congress,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who supports an impeachment inquiry. “I hope he’ll change his mind.”

The top two Democratic leaders in Congress haven’t touched the topic publicly and Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden stopped short of endorsing an impeachment inquiry. Several senior House aides said Democratic leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have not discussed the recently disclosed Kavanaugh accusation — and what, if any, action the chamber should take.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters Monday he would address the matter later: “That’s all I’m saying. Which is nothing. I’m saying nothing on Kavanaugh.”

Many Democrats are not eager to wade into a battle that energizes conservatives, who quickly dismissed Democrats’ impeachment calls. Though the effort to oust Kavanaugh is popular on the left and quickly became a litmus test in the presidential primary, Republicans indicated they relish the return of an issue they believe helped them keep the Senate in 2018.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is potentially vulnerable in his reelection bid next year, said “the left’s most recent effort to destroy his life and impeach him will fail.” The National Republican Senatorial Committee did fundraising off the early calls to get rid of Kavanaugh, urging donors: “Don’t let Democrats and the liberal media smear Justice Kavanaugh.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chaired the Judiciary Committee during Kavanaugh’s confirmation, gave fiery speeches pushing back against the latest allegations. McConnell called them “flimsy.”

Grassley told reporters his committee received only a letter telling them to talk to Max Stier, who The New York Times reported had witnessed Kavanaugh commit sexual assault at Yale. But Grassley said the letter contained no such allegation.

“You impeach people for treason, high crimes and misdemeanors. What has he committed?” Grassley said. “There were no allegations in this letter, so I’m not sure what the FBI was supposed to investigate.”

There were always indications the Democratic Party would return to Kavanaugh. Nadler told The New York Times just before Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote in October that he planned to thoroughly investigate the allegations, including subpoenaing White House and FBI records and interviewing the accusers. Kavanaugh’s opponents hoped the Democratic House would quickly move on the matter.

But since regaining control of the House in January, Democrats have done little to revisit the issue. Nadler petitioned the National Archives last month to release a large cache of records from Kavanaugh’s time in the George W. Bush administration, House Democrats’ most significant step to date.

Nadler said the committee plans to press FBI Director Christopher Wray on the bureau’s investigation into the allegations during a previously scheduled hearing next month. Last year Nadler called the FBI’s investigation into the accusations a “whitewash” but the New York Democrat made clear on Monday that impeaching Kavanaugh is not his top priority.

That’s just fine with Senate leaders, who see little upside to impeachment.

“I understand their frustration. I was in the front row of the frustration crowd. They didn’t produce the documents and the FBI didn’t follow up on the investigation,” Durbin said. “We’re now getting pushed into the impeachment corner by the Republicans every chance they get.”

Judiciary Chair Nadler's response is more nuanced, and more interesting, however. It amounts to saying "We're too busy impeaching Donald Trump to do this right now", but its not a flat rejection of impeaching Kavanaugh under any circumstances either. The Judiciary Committee is set to begin an investigation into Kavanaugh's past, and whether the FBI investigation during his confirmation hearing was thorough enough, next month. Nadler has already requested the release of documents reg. Kavanaugh.

https://politico.com/story/2019/09/16/h ... nt-1498124

The House Judiciary Committee is too tied up with "impeaching the president" to take immediate action on a potential investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said Monday.

"We have our hands full with impeaching the president right now and that's going to take up our limited resources and time for a while," Nadler said on WNYC when pressed by host Brian Lehrer.

It's a significant comment that comes even as advocates for formal impeachment proceedings against Trump have argued the Judiciary Committee is capable of juggling its Trump-focused investigations with other issues in its broad jurisdiction — including immigration and criminal justice policies.

Nadler’s interview comes amid calls from some Senate Democrats and presidential candidates to impeach Kavanaugh after a New York Times story over the weekend reported a new allegation of sexual misconduct against the justice from his time as a student at Yale.

Nadler said his first move to investigate Kavanaugh would come next month, when FBI Director Christopher Wray appears for a previously scheduled hearing that will now feature a significant focus on the Supreme Court justice's past — and whether the FBI's background check was thorough enough. Nadler said his panel's primary focus would be determining whether Kavanaugh lied to the Senate.

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"These deeds that he allegedly did years ago would be very relevant to a senator voting for or against his nomination," Nadler said.

At the time, Nadler complained that the Senate only got a fraction of Kavanaugh's records from his White House tenure, which ran from 2001 to 2006, when he served in the White House counsel's office and later as staff secretary. He said it was urgent to receive because of the potential for Kavanaugh to rule on policy matters that may have come up during his time in the White House.

Last month, Nadler asked the National Archives to release a large cache of records related to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's time in George W. Bush's White House.

Nadler's comments on Kavanaugh preceded some of his strongest comments to date on impeaching Trump. Nadler emphasized that in his view, it's "imperative" that Trump be impeached to deter wrongdoing by future presidents. He also said Congress already has all the information it needs to make that decision. What's missing, he said, is educating the public on those findings.

"In my personal opinion, impeachment is imperative not because he's going to be removed from office — the Senate won't do that — but because we have to vindicate the Constitution," he said. "We have to show that the kind of self-dealing enrichment that this president is engaged in ... that the kind of public corruption he's been involved in, that the kind of obstruction of justice that the Mueller report documented — five instances of which met all the requirements for an indictment and the president would have been indicted for those five instances had the Justice Department not had a policy of not indicting presidents no matter what -- we have to show that this kind of behavior … cannot be normalized."

Nadler's position on impeachment puts him much further ahead on the issue than Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has said the House must continue to investigate and litigate against Trump before making a determination on what to do. She's acknowledged that public sentiment does not favor impeachment but insists that the decision won't be political but rather based on the factual merits.

Nadler hinted at the divide among Democrats, noting that some of his colleagues are reluctant to use the terms "impeachment inquiry" or "impeachment investigation" to describe what the House is doing. Nadler, though, described a Tuesday hearing that his panel will convene on obstruction of justice allegations against Trump as an "impeachment hearing.”

“We are involved in an investigation to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment to the House. That is what we're doing,” he said. “The term impeachment investigation, the term impeachment inquiry have no legal meaning. Shorthand for an investigation into determining whether to recommend articles of impeachment. That's what we're doing and we're doing it officially.”

"I have said this in very certain terms as many times as I can as definitely as I can now. Other people have, for various reasons, have been more reluctant -- been reluctant to use the term impeachment inquiry or impeachment investigation," he said. "But as I've said those terms have no official meaning."

As for the prospect of an actual impeachment vote int he House, Nadler said there is a math challenge within the Democratic caucus to get 218 votes of support for impeachment.

"There's a maximum of 236 possible votes, namely 235 Democrats and Justin Amash" — the former Republican who shed his party affiliation after coming out in support of Trump's removal, Nadler said. "We have to through the hearings that we're going to hold now — a very aggressive series of hearings on very serious offenses committed by the president ... We have to show that there are adequate grounds for impeachment that there are imperative grounds for impeachment."

Nadler is rapidly becoming one of my favorite Democrats after AOC, Warren, and O'Rourke. His position here is honestly reasonable under the circumstances, and I accept it for the time being. Donald Trump is the bigger priority, and its not like he gave a hard "no".

This isn't all that discouraging to be honest- in fact, its better than I hoped for right now. It seems like the party is basically in the same place regarding impeaching Kavanaugh that they were on impeaching Trump a few months ago. I would also add that unlike the President, there is absolutely no doubt that Constitutionally, a Supreme Court Justice can be indicted, even if they aren't impeached. That's very unlikely to be done by William Barr's Department of Justice, obviously, but with any luck, Barr won't be AG in another year and a half, and with multiple major Democratic Presidential candidates taking a strong stand on this, the next AG could very well be someone willing to prosecute Kavanaugh.

It certainly doesn't fit with the idea that holding Kavanaugh accountable lawfully is an impossibility that should be dismissed out of hand, leaving political violence/murder as the only recourse.

[Elfdart]

The Democrats, led by Biden, were too chickenshit to reject Clarence Thomas, so I doubt they'll ever have the balls to try to remove Schlitz Kavanaugh. There is a practical way to make him irrelevant, but it would require the Democrats to (a) grow a pair and (b) take both houses and the presidency next November: pack the shit out of the courts. Add four seats to the Supreme Court, too.

[Darth Yan]

Could Pelosi be primairied or replaced with a different person.

Or if Biden is shot down in the primaries than the old ways will be well and truly crippled. Pelosi may not have a choice in that case

[Elheru Aran]

Could Pelosi be primairied or replaced with a different person.

Or if Biden is shot down in the primaries than the old ways will be well and truly crippled. Pelosi may not have a choice in that case

Pelosi is up for re-election in 2020. It's always possible she'll have a primary challenger, and honestly I wouldn't be surprised if there is one or more. But incumbency is a powerful thing, and it'll take some solid campaigning to topple her.

[The Romulan Republic]

The Democrats, led by Biden, were too chickenshit to reject Clarence Thomas, so I doubt they'll ever have the balls to try to remove Schlitz Kavanaugh. There is a practical way to make him irrelevant, but it would require the Democrats to (a) grow a pair and (b) take both houses and the presidency next November: pack the shit out of the courts. Add four seats to the Supreme Court, too.

I don't know. What you need to remember is that the Democrats aren't a homogenous block. Sure, some of the old guard Centrists might baulk at impeaching Kavanaugh, but the excuse they have to not impeach Trump (that the Senate will automatically acquit, and it'll help Trump), dubious as it is, may not apply after November 2020. There is already a strong push to impeach Kavanaugh, with at least one House Dem having filed a motion to do so. The head of the Judiciary Committee hasn't definitively ruled it out, either (Nadler's statement amounted to "we're not doing it now because we're too busy with impeaching Trump, but we'll investigate further). The talk around impeaching Kavanaugh is very much like the talk around impeaching Trump was about six months ago, I think. I suspect that if a blue wave comes in again next year (likely powered by female voters), there will be a LOT of pressure to impeach Kavanaugh.

Remember also that Supreme Court Justices, unlike sitting Presidents, unambiguously CAN be indicted- and while the Barr DOJ isn't likely to do that (to put it mildly), Barr may not be AG after 2020 either. And multiple Dem. Presidential candidates have already signaled support for impeaching or at least further investigating Kavanaugh, which means they may appoint an AG willing to do so.

Frankly, there seems to be more political will to impeach Kavanaugh now that to court-pack, so while I'm not absolutely opposed to court-packing, I'm not sure its viable if impeachment isn't.

I think with almost any of these questions we have to see where we stand after the 2020 elections before we really know what's possible one way or another. Worry about winning 2020- everything else hinges on that.

[The Romulan Republic]

Discussion of the possibility of impeaching Kavanaugh:

https://washingtonpost.com/politics/201 ... ould-work/

One year ago, a bitterly divided Senate voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh to a lifetime appointment on the nation’s highest court; the vote was 50 to 48.

Now, as the Oct. 8 anniversary of his confirmation nears, the New York Times reports that it has uncovered a previously unreported claim of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh and that it found the FBI interviewed none of the potential witnesses. The story, published Saturday evening, compelled several Democrats to demand a new investigation into the Supreme Court justice.

Even before the recent spate of sexual misconduct allegations, murmurs among Kavanaugh opponents fixated on whether he had lied under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Saturday’s story from the Times quickly raised new questions about whether Kavanaugh perjured himself and reignited calls for his impeachment.

“Brett M. Kavanaugh lied to the U.S. Senate and most importantly to the American people,” presidential contender Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) said Sunday of last year’s confirmation hearings. “He was put on the Court through a sham process and his place on the Court is an insult to the pursuit of truth and justice. He must be impeached.”

Since Saturday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former housing and urban development secretary Julián Castro, also Democratic presidential candidates, pushed for Kavanaugh’s impeachment, too.

[Democratic candidates demand Kavanaugh impeachment after new allegation in Times piece]

What is impeachment?
At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the delegates concluded that even those holding the highest office would not be above the law, birthing the American system of impeachment.

Under the Constitution, the president, the vice president and “all civil Officers of the United States” (including those in the executive branch, plus federal judges) may be removed from office for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The procedure for impeaching a president or a federal judge is broadly the same.

There are two parts to the process:

The House is entrusted with the responsibility of voting on impeachment. Its members decide by a majority vote.

Then the Senate holds a trial for the underlying misconduct. A conviction requires two-thirds of the Senate, or 67 votes. If there is a conviction, the Senate would remove the individual from office.

How likely is Kavanaugh’s impeachment and removal?
Impeachment proceedings are contingent on Democrats controlling the House, the only body that can bring an article of impeachment. The current House breakdown is 235 Democrats, 198 Republicans, one Independent and one vacancy, according to the Cook Political Report, which puts impeachment in the realm of political possibility.

Yet Kavanaugh’s removal is exceedingly unlikely, given the supermajority threshold in the Senate, where there are 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and two Independents (who caucus with the Democrats). The “supermajority” threshold for removal is exceedingly high by design: The delegates crafted it to prevent politics from driving the outcome, instead ensuring any misconduct was offensive enough to have bipartisan support for removal.

Nineteen federal officials — including 15 judges and two presidents — have been impeached, but fewer than half have been removed by the Senate because of the supermajority standard.

The most famous cases resulted in impeachment but not removal. Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were the only two presidents to be impeached by the House. Each reached the Senate for trial, but both were acquitted, Johnson by a single vote. Neither was removed from office.

Only one sitting Supreme Court justice — Samuel Chase — was impeached, on charges of being too partisan in 1805. As with Johnson and Clinton, Chase was acquitted by the Senate and continued to serve.

[Democrats’ messy messaging on impeachment, explained]

What are judges impeached for?
There isn’t a clear definition of “impeachable offense,” though historically it is often framed by statutory felonies and involves a significant abuse of power, according to Jed Shugerman, a professor at Fordham University School of Law and an expert in constitutional law. “Current culture has also changed our understanding of what an abuse of power is,” he said.

In 1970, arguing for the impeachment of Justice William O. Douglas, then-Rep. Gerald Ford (R-Mich.) defined impeachable offenses as “whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history. … Something less than a criminal act or criminal dereliction of duty may nevertheless be sufficient grounds for impeachment.”

Douglas was never impeached; the hearings held by the House Judiciary Committee produced no credible evidence and concluded without a vote.

What’s clear, however, is that perjury is a significant offense, especially for a judge.

The question of lying under oath is particularly important for someone who would be or is a member of the judiciary, according to Lisa Graves, a former Senate Judiciary Committee lawyer who called for Kavanaugh’s impeachment after his confirmation to the Supreme Court.

A judge, she said, is a symbol of integrity and the law. To the extent that a judge’s integrity is tainted, it disables that person from being able to continue as a judge.

“Lawyers are officers of the court,” Graves, who is also a former deputy assistant U.S. attorney general, told The Post. “Courts rule on matters and assess witness credibility all the time, so honesty, integrity and truthfulness are paramount qualities for a judge.”

This principle is evidenced by prior successful judicial impeachment proceedings:

Alcee L. Hastings was impeached and removed from the bench for perjury in 1988. (Hastings now serves in Congress, as a Democrat representing Florida’s 20th District.) Walter L. Nixon was impeached and removed for lying to a grand jury in 1989. Most recently, Thomas Porteous Jr. was impeached and removed for committing perjury on financial disclosures in 2010.

Clinton’s impeachment was also based on his alleged lying under oath during a deposition, a proceeding that Kavanaugh was intimately familiar with from his time working on special prosecutor Kenneth W. Starr’s investigative team.

“Even though our political discourse has been defiled by the proliferation of so many politicians’ lies, the rules for testifying under oath, whether it’s at the U.S. Senate, trial or deposition, is one of the only sacred vows in a secular society. It should be taken seriously because of that,” Graves said. "[Kavanaugh] certainly held President Clinton to that standard. He’s not above the law any more than the president is above the law.”

Now what?
For now, the burden rests with the House.

It’s possible the House Judiciary Committee quickly moves to reinvestigate Kavanaugh and draft articles of impeachment.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who chairs the committee, has previously said he would support such an action. In August, he requested the National Archives release records from Kavanaugh’s time in George W. Bush’s White House.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly said that the New York Times had corroborated a previously unreported claim of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh. The woman purported involved in the claim has said she doesn’t recall the incident. The article also gave an incorrect Senate breakdown along party lines. It has been updated.

Editor’s note: This story includes earlier reporting, from October 2018.

It looks like they are focusing more on the perjury angle than the sexual assault angle, which is probably the right move- while I think Kavanaugh is probably a sexual predator, it'll likely be easier to make a perjury case.

This also reinforces that Nadler is open to the idea, which is crucial- as the Chair of the Judiciary Committee, he would likely be spearheading any successful impeachment effort against Kavanaugh, same as he is now against Donald. His reluctance to do it right away seems to be more "I want to focus on nailing Trump" than actual opposition to the idea in theory. Which honestly, I can respect. As galling and dangerous as it is to have Kava-cock on the Court, Trump is the bigger fish right now. Besides, impeaching Kava-cock is arguably pointless. While a Trump impeachment could possibly be used to damage Republican election prospects, a Kavanaugh impeachment will likely have less political impact, while still leading to an acquittal, and if we did somehow remove him now, Trump and Moscow Mitch could just ram through another monster as his replacement.

Beat Trump first, then nail Kavanaugh to the fucking wall (if we win back the White House, we can also appoint an AG who will investigate him properly, and unlike sitting Presidents, Supreme Court Justices enjoy no immunity to indictment).

(As an aside, Nadler is rapidly climbing in my esteem among Democrats. I really want to see a movement to boot Pelosi as Speaker and replace her with Nadler.)