As this past week drew to a close, The New York Times published a comprehensive story covering U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s past. They revealed yet another new allegation of his involvement in sexual misconduct, and they even revealed that more than two dozen witnesses were never interviewed by authorities, although some even tried to get in touch. This weekend on ABC’s This Week, Senate Judiciary Committee member and Texas Republican Ted Cruz went on an angry tangent against those concerned about this, insisting that there’s nothing to see here with the passion of someone trying to burn down their own building so they can collect insurance.
He even claimed that there’s some consensus among the American people that there was never any real truth to the allegations against Kavanaugh in the first place. This is demonstrably false — just look around at the demonstrations, outpourings of internet support, and more. Still, Cruz railed to host George Stephanopoulos about the new story from The Times:
‘I gotta say — they apparently spent ten months with undercover reporters trying to track down every person that went to school with Justice Kavanaugh thirty years ago. It’s an amazing level of reporting, trying to just really dig up any dirt they can on the guy. I think that follows up with the rather shameful circus we saw during the confirmation hearing where they took allegations, they sat on them, they didn’t make them public, they revealed them at the 11th hour — and you know what, the Judiciary Committee did what we should have done… At the end of the day, the American people made a judgment that the evidence wasn’t there.’
Wrong! He talks like there was some kind of referendum on the Kavanaugh allegations. There was not.
Sen. Ted Cruz on calls to impeach Justice Brett Kavanaugh amid report of another allegation: “I think that follows up with the rather shameful circus we saw during the confirmation hearing … it really is another sign of how nasty and divided the time is” https://t.co/gxl9RihwwF pic.twitter.com/h1dx7YKv1i
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) September 15, 2019
There was instead a group of old white men in the Senate who decided that the allegations against now Justice Kavanaugh weren’t worth pursuing any further. That’s all — even the so-called “moderate” now former Republican Arizona Senator Jeff Flake admitted there was a nonzero chance the allegations were true, but even he voted to confirm Kavanaugh anyway.
The will of the vast segments of American society explicitly against someone like Brett “I like beer!” Kavanaugh joining the Supreme Court was ignored.
Cruz went on with claiming otherwise anyway! Talking like he’s in any position to be speaking for large segments of American society, he insisted:
‘I bet you the next Democratic debate, they’ll all be saying — impeach Kavanaugh, impeach Trump. There’s nobody they don’t want to impeach. And at some point, they just have to let the anger go and realize that the democratic process moves on.’
Sen. Ted Cruz: “I bet you the next Democratic debate they’ll all be saying impeach Kavanaugh, impeach Trump. There’s nobody they don’t want to impeach … they just have to let the anger go and recognize that the Democratic process actually moves on” https://t.co/gxl9RihwwF pic.twitter.com/qpFST4vQgL
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) September 15, 2019
Let’s be clear — if the “pure” idea of the democratic process that Cruz is pointing to here was actually allowed to play out, Hillary Clinton would currently be in the White House considering she got millions more votes than Trump in 2016. No doubt, that’s not quite what Cruz means, however — instead, he just wants to use that “democracy” for lip service. It doesn’t erase the truth!
Featured Image via screenshot
