This Thursday, President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is set to testify before the Senate in the face of credible allegations he sexually assaulted a woman at a high school party. His accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, is also set to appear, as pressure on the nominee continues to pile up.
Ask Trump himself, though, and there’s little reason to worry. According to the president — who is, remember, himself a credibly accused sexual predator — Judge Kavanaugh is a “fantastic” man who’s been unfairly put through the ringer by the emergence of stories of his background. It follows, then, that for the president — as has been expressed by others, including Nevada’s Republican U.S. Senator Dean Heller — the controversy is little more than a “hiccup” on the way to the confirmation of a second Trump SCOTUS nominee. South Carolina’s Republican U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham went so far as to say that he wouldn’t “ruin” Kavanaugh’s life over Dr. Ford’s story of his past.
There’s more to what’s going on, though. On a base level, when it comes to Ford’s story, Graham complaining about the effect on the potential attacker of bringing up the assault is deeply ironic. Kavanaugh isn’t the one who’s life got held over a cliff here. On a very practical level, Ford has explained that during the incident itself, she was afraid the high school and college menace turned judge would accidentally kill her.
Additionally, glossing over the potentially derailing issues associated with Kavanaugh’s nomination is misplaced. Plenty of Democrats have already made their opposition to the judge known — although, to be sure, the president has acknowledged this.
Still, he paints the core of the situation as shining a favorable light on his administration and, well, just a “hiccup.”
He told Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera:
‘Hopefully, we’ll have a second judge very shortly who is a fantastic, fantastic man, a fantastic talent and intellect.’
He doesn’t even entertain the possibility of Kavanaugh not being such a “fantastic guy” — although, to be sure, considering the president’s own history, Trump could remain totally unfazed should the allegations against the judge be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
In the meantime he just keeps complaining, separately complaining Monday that the allegations and scrutiny against Kavanaugh may constitute one of the “single most unfair, unjust things to happen to a candidate for anything.”
It’s a pretty well documented pattern that the president is so wrapped up in himself that anything he’s associated with is the best — or worst — ever.
Anyway, while the president continues on with his about-face, the tension just keeps piling up. Sunday, The New Yorker came out with a second story of a woman suffering sexual misconduct at Kavanaugh’s hands. Deborah Ramirez says that Kavanaugh abused her at a college party — a story that did not emerge just now, but as in the case of Ford, resurfaced behind the scenes months ago. Now, it’s out in the open.
What effect any of this has on the judge’s confirmation remains to be seen at this point, although the compounding of evidence — including some prominent lawyer Michael Avenatti says he has — may knock the judge off his pedestal entirely.
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