Michael Avenatti has come forward with the most serious, by far, allegations yet made against Brett Kavanaugh. He provided a tweet with photographs of the documents he shared with the Senate Judiciary Committee, including a declaration from a woman named Julie Swetnick who claims that she was drugged, possibly with quaaludes, and gang raped by a group of young men at a party where Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were “present.” In addition to this, she said that she attended at least ten parties with Kavanaugh and Judge and avoided the punch because she knew it to be spiked for the purpose of incapacitating girls. She personally observed both Kavanaugh and Judge “targeting” girls in this way. She also observed both Kavanaugh and Judge “lined up” outside bedrooms to take their turn with girls who had been incapacitated. According to Avenatti, she also has two people who can and will corroborate her claims.
Below is my correspondence to Mr. Davis of moments ago, together with a sworn declaration from my client. We demand an immediate FBI investigation into the allegations. Under no circumstances should Brett Kavanaugh be confirmed absent a full and complete investigation. pic.twitter.com/QHbHBbbfbE
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 26, 2018
You can read the Washington Post‘s coverage of this story here.
Kavanaugh denies these allegations and says they are coming from “the Twilight Zone.” The president is attacking Avenatti. Chuck Grassley says that Avenatti defends the porn industry and wants to run for president.
Mark Judge’s ex-girlfriend independently cooperated that he was involved in at least one incident like this.
The New Yorker interviewed [Elizabeth] Rasor, who told the New Yorker that she “felt morally obligated to challenge [Judge’s] account that ‘no horseplay’ took place at Georgetown Prep with women.” She told the New Yorker that couldn’t “stand by and watch him lie,” which prompted her to speak out.
Rasor stressed to the New Yorker that Judge had told her a “very different” and disturbing story about the type of “rough-housing” he took part in. She claims that Judge had “ashamedly” told her of an incident that involved him and other boys “taking turns having sex with a drunk woman.” However, Judge allegedly told Rasor that he regarded the incident as completely consensual.
“She said that Judge did not name others involved in the incident, and she has no knowledge that Kavanaugh participated. But Rasor was disturbed by the story and noted that it undercut Judge’s protestations about the sexual innocence of Georgetown Prep,” the New Yorker reports.
Since Judge confessed to doing this kind of thing at least once, it’s certainly not impossible that he did it more than once and with his friend present. There’s a limit to how much you can confess to your girlfriend and still have a girlfriend. There’s also a major problem with the idea that teenage girls can truly consent to this kind of thing when they’ve been given powerful drugs or consumed too much alcohol. In these tellings, they did not even consent to taking the drug or understand how powerful the drinks were that they were consuming. Judge’s insistence that the woman he victimized consented is wishful thinking at best.
If these allegations are true, it’s in the nature of the crimes that there were many participants and many witnesses, as well as many additional victims. This is actually something the FBI could retroactively investigate with some hope of success.
Grassley says he may look into these new charges, but not as part of tomorrow’s hearing, which he says should be completely devoted to the testimony of Dr. Ford and Kavanaugh’s response.
I think he is toast. They will bluff for another 24 to 40 hours and he will withdraw and try to keep his current job, which he should loose.
I had pretty much figured that Kavanaugh was still a shoe-in for the SCOTUS given how hard the GOP & Trump were clinging and grasping to their Fair Haired White Boy. Plus also how the rightwing propaganda wurlitizer was in overdrive hyping the spin that the DemonRATS were “out of control” in how they were “going overboard” in “attacking” poor, poor, pitiful Fair Haired WHITE virginal boy Kavanaugh. blah de blah…
With these most recent accusations – via Avanetti & Judge’s former girlfriend – I think it gets really hard for the GOP/Trump to “hang tough” and force Kavanaugh into the SCOTUS.
Albeit, stranger things have happened.
One does have to wonder why the eff they’re so dedicated to pushing this worthless POS through. I mean, they must have gobs and stacks of Judges who’ll gladly toss Roe v. Wade under the bus and then some.
What’s with Kavanaugh that makes him so special??
>What’s with Kavanaugh that makes him so special??
That’s what I’ve been trying to understand. And didn’t Kennedy say he’d only resign if it were Kavanaugh who was nominated?
Here’s the worst of it: 538 has Trump’s approval up about a point and a half and the generic ballot down about a point since all this hit. Maybe they’re doing to help themselves in midterms – maybe “the base” is really that sick that they’d prefer a rapist on the Supreme Court to “own the libs”.
If you look at the polls included in the most recent part of those ratings it is almost all the Yougov daily poll (which skews towards GOP) and Rasmussen.
If you exclude those two (which normally 538 does by using “house effect” adjustments, plus other polls being present) then this movement disappears and things are still moving against Trump. Now, if it continues and other polls confirm it for another week or so then I will definitely be worried.
I tried to link one I created using Huff post which lets you remove them, but I’m having trouble. Basically it wipes out ~4 points of the closure in the disapprove gap.
Generic approval polls are neither 1) that sensitive or 2) that specific.
I don’t tend to pay attention to them, except maybe over the span of months/years, but if Trump’s approval is genuinely increasing then it could simply be a matter of him (or his fuckups) not being the focus of the news.
. . . that if O’Kav’s withdrawn, they won’t be able to get a replacement rammed through (which becomes more likely the longer they try and fail to ram Bart through), i.e., that Dems’ chances of being able to run out the clock in that scenario keep increasing. Which will then mean they inflicted the upcoming electoral bloodbath (fingers crossed) on themselves and got nothing for it.
So while there remains any faint hope of ramming Bart through, they’re sticking with it. Never forget, they are evil motherfuckers. Keeping that firmly and continuously in view is clarifying.
I agree entirely and the Turtle, as usual, is the most cynical and amoral operator pushing this most strongly. But there are now quite a lot of Republican Senators that are really starting to feel doubtful. Even if the GOP leadership push this to a vote, I’m not really sure it would get a confirming vote.
Yes, there are a lot of other reactionary judges they could choose. Why they want to keep this damaged goods is a mystery (aside from being afraid of losing the Senate).The Turtle even thought Kavanaugh was a bad choice because of his paper trail.
David Brock’s piece that’s linked in the comments in the article posted just before this gives a pretty strong explanation for why Rep want Kavanaugh to get the seat.
He’s been groomed for this.
Yeah, but so have a dozen other wingnut Bushco/Starr alums who have been circuit judges for over a decade. Also of note is that the CO Beer Baron’s Boy Gorsuch came in ahead of Predator Bart in the XtremistJudge sweepstakes. So Conductor Bart already wasn’t Candidate One.
Since we haven’t been given access to full government record as a WH lawyer it’s very hard to know exactly why he was picked over the other Federalist Soc’ty finalists, it could be as stupid as that Trumper liked Bart’s accent, or thought his wife was a cutie.
I note that the demented Trumper smeared Dems today at his endless presser as committing a moral outrage against O’Kav’s “beautiful daughters” (and wife) simply by taking the various abuse allegations seriously. Stay classy, “conservatives”….
You ask:
“What’s with Kavanaugh that makes him so special??”
#1-They…alright, Trump…already chose him. They can’t back down without losing face….and votes in November
plus
#2-They fear that there is not enough (ever-decreasing) time between “now” and the election to choose and then push through another Rat. They also fear the the burgeoning anti-Trump vote may make this their last chance to pack the court.
So there they are…caught in a perfect storm.
Screwed if they do and screwed if they don’t.
Serves ’em right for acquiescing to Trump’s reign out front.
AG
Disagree that they are scewed if they are successful in getting him confirmed. He is a historically radical reacttionary who would help wreak havoc on th federal government, if appointed. It’s all about their legacy. That said, it may not work. As Trump says, “We’ll see what happens.”
Trump knows Kavanaugh will defend him from Mueller.
I would wonder if at this point, sticking with Kavanaugh might not just be about the simple optic of not “caving” to Democrats and to women. We all know that in the GOP and Trump world, the true measure of a man is determined by how “tough” he is by never ceding an inch once he has made up his mind what he wants his particular reality to be, and what the desired outcome is.
If they finally do decide that Kavanaugh has to be jettisoned, then I expect their next choice will be significantly further out on the crazy spectrum, and they will let absolutely nothing get in the way of the confirmation of that person. At that point it will be solely about pissing off liberals and their feminazi constituency, and exacting the maximum right wing satisfaction. They will be in full revenge mode against everyone who is not in their tribe. It will be horribly awful and ugly, and it could well backfire on them, but they absolutely will not give a shit about the potential consequences at that point.
It would also have to be done in a lame duck session of Congress.
I know a woman who experienced just that kind of attack in high school. The perpetrators were all wealthy, white highschoolers and hyper rich Newport Rhode Island. These allegations not only don’t surprise me, they call up memories.
. . . with it.
But she remains traumatized with PTSD to this day.