The Daily Signal - Ep. 306: Analyzing How the Ford Hearing Went

Episode Date: September 27, 2018

The Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process came to a boiling point on Thursday, as his accuser testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and Kavanaugh himself issued forceful defense. We cover the highlights and discuss with The Heritage Foundation’s Tom Jipping. Plus: We feature an interview with Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who accused Bill Clinton of rape.We also cover these stories:--Dr. Christine Blasey Ford said she was "100 percent" certain Kavanaugh was the man who assaulted her.--Highlights from protesters, both for and against confirming Kavanaugh.--President Donald Trump and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will now meet next week.--"Have these European leaders learned nothing from history? Will they ever wake up?” asked Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday, speaking about Iran.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, September 28th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. The Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process came to a boiling point on Thursday as his accuser testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and Kavanaugh himself issued a forceful defense. We'll cover the highlights and discuss with Heritage Foundation's Tom Jipping. Plus, we'll bring you an exclusive clip from an interview with Juanita Broderick,

the woman who accused Bill Clinton of rape. But first, we'll cover a few of the top headlines. Well, Judge Brett Kavanaugh issued a forceful and searing defense of himself and his family on Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He denied, once again, with equal force, any wrongdoing with regard to Dr. Ford and any of his other accusers. Less than two weeks ago, Dr. Ford publicly accused me of committing wrongdoing at an event more than 36 years ago when we were both in high school. I denied the allegation immediately, categorically, and unequivocally. All four people, allegedly at the event, including Dr. Ford's longtime friend, Ms. Kaiser, have said they recall no such event.

Her longtime friend, Ms. Kaiser, said under penalty of felony that she does not know me and does not believe she ever saw me at a party ever. Here is the quote from Ms. Kaiser's attorney's letter. Quote, simply put, Ms. Kaiser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh, and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present with or without Dr. Ford, end quote. Think about that fact. The day after the allegation appeared, I told this committee that I wanted a hearing as soon as possible

to clear my name. I demanded a hearing for the very next day. Unfortunately, it took the committee 10 days to get to this hearing. In those 10 long days, as was predictable, and as I predicted, my family and my name have been totally and permanently destroyed

by vicious and false additional accusations. The 10-day delay has been harmful to me and my family, to the Supreme Court, and to the country. When this allegation first arose, I welcomed any kind of investigation, Senate, FBI, or otherwise. The committee now has conducted a thorough investigation, and I've cooperated fully. I know that any kind of investigation, Senate, FBI, Montgomery County, police, whatever will clear me listen to the people I know listen to the people have known me my whole life listen to the people I've grown up with and worked with and played with and coached with and dated and taught and gone to games

with and had beers with and listen to the witnesses who allegedly were at this event 36 years ago listen to Miss Kaiser She does not know me. I was not at the party described by Dr. Ford. Also on Thursday, Dr. Christine Blaisey Ford testified about her allegation that she had been assaulted by Kavanaugh. Here's one exchange she had with Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois. One question is critical. In Judge Kavanaugh's opening testimony, which we will hear after you leave, this is what he says.

I never had any sexual or physical. encounter of any kind with Dr. Ford. I am not questioning that Dr. Ford may have been sexually assaulted by some person in some place at some time. Last night, the Republican staff of this committee released the media a timeline that shows that they've interviewed two people who claimed they were the ones who actually assaulted you. I'm asking you to address this new defense of mistaken identity directly. Dr. Ford, with what degree of certainty, do you believe Brett Kavanaugh assaulted you? 100%.

100%. And in exchange with Senator Patrick Leahy, also a Democrat, Ford recalled the alleged assault. Let's go back to the incident. What is the strongest memory you have? Strongest memory of the incident, something that you cannot forget. Take whatever time you need. Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, the uproarious laughter between the two, and they're having fun at my expense. You've never forgotten that laughter. You've never forgotten them laughing at you. They were laughing with each other.

And you were the object of the laughter? I was, you know, underneath one of them while the two laughed. two friends having a really good time with one another. Well, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham continues to stand by Brett Kavanaugh, even after Dr. Ford's testimony. Here's what he told reporters. I don't know any more than I know before. I do know that the people claim to have been at the party,

said nothing happened. I don't know how she got home and I don't know how she got there. I think something happened to Dr. Ford. I'm going to listen to Brett Kavanaugh, who Adam Lee denies it. The one thing I can tell you, I'm more upset than ever by the way my Democratic colleagues have handled this. They knew about this in July. There was a polygraph, August 10th, that we get September the 26th.

We offered to go out there. She said she couldn't come here because of fear of flying. None of that is holding water. We'll see what happens. Earlier on the day, Senator Graham had dismissed the two other men who had come forward to the committee, claiming they were the ones who assaulted Ford. He said one of the two men was, quote, crazy as a loon, which he said on CBS's this morning, and he said he didn't believe the other man.

Both of the men have not been identified by the committee. Women gathered in Washington, D.C., Thursday morning near the Capitol, to rally to show support for Brett Kavanaugh. Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network was among the women who spoke at the rally. I want to start out by saying, as a woman, as a mother of daughters, the experience she describes does sound absolutely awful. And there are women who suffer that those kind of experiences all the time. It's wrong.

She may have suffered that, and that is a horrible experience. However, as a mother also of sons, I want to speak for the fact that men need to have due process as well. We need to be able to hear both sides and not jump to judgment. Judge Kavanaugh has unequivocally denied these allegations. under penalty of felony, lying to the judiciary committee is the same penalty as perjury. We know also that his background and all the women who have stood up for him, 65 women who've known him since high school, 60 more in the light of most recent allegations, men and women who said this is not the culture that we were in.

If there was the type of rape culture that's being described here, we would have stood up and said something, and we would never have stood by silently. He's gone through six different FBI background checks, never a hint of wrongdoing. There's no concerning pattern of actual action here. What we're seeing here, unfortunately, is a pattern of Democrats pushing forward allegations that as soon as you press on them start to fall apart. Well, throughout Thursday's hearing, protesters were active outside the Supreme Court. Three of our Daily Signal team went out to talk to them.

Here's one exchange that Jenny Montalbano had with one of the protesters who believed. leave Dr. Ford. Do you think this is about politics or justice? I think it's about justice. Yeah, I think it's pretty clearly about justice. Because Gavinow is a sexual offender, and we don't think he should be a Supreme Court justice, or a federal court judge,

or even, like, roaming within society. It should be a first instance assumption to believe victims. Of course, an investigation should be carried out, but bearing in mind the victims first and not the alleged perpetrators. I'm here because the Republicans, are trying to nominate a rapist to the Supreme Court. But some of the protesters reveal that justice for Dr. Ford wasn't the only factor in their minds.

I'm sick and tired of having the Supreme Court imbalanced with white men who really do not understand. They can't possibly understand our issues, and they don't try. And it's time to get more balance in the Supreme Court. Just enough of this, enough of the old white men. So for both of you right now, this is very much about the issues that are at stake, perhaps Roe v. Wade. Oh, absolutely, Roe v. Wade, and other issues that we may not even know about yet. There should have been an investigation ordered immediately. Now it's a circus.

It's a three-ring circus now. The much-anticipated meeting between President Trump and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein didn't occur after all on Thursday. Rosenstein, of course, has been under fire since a report last week that he considered recording the president and using the 25th Amendment. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement Thursday, The President spoke with Rod Rosenstein a few minutes ago, and they planned to meet next week. They do not want to do anything to interfere with the hearing. Well, the Federal Reserve hiked an interest rate on Wednesday, citing the strong and growing economy. It's the third time the Fed has hiked interest rates this year.

The decision came as officials at the Fed upgraded their assessment of the economy. They now expect GDP growth to hit 3.1 for the whole year. Speaking at the United Nations Thursday, Israeli primarily prime. Minister Benjamin Nanyahu didn't mince words, accusing Iran of continuing to pursue its nuclear ambitions. He said, quote, today I am disclosing for the first time that Iran has another secret facility in Tehran, a secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and material from Iran's secret nuclear program, end quote. He also called on Europe to change its views on Iran, saying, quote, had these European leaders learn nothing from history, Will they ever wake up?

Well, up next, we'll sit down with Tom Jipping to discuss the Kavanaugh hearing. Hi, this is Rob Blewey, an editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal. If you liked hearing about the issues that Washington's not discussing, check out underreported, a brand-new video series from The Daily Signal looking at other issues that the mainstream media forgot to mention. Well, joining us in studio to discuss the ongoing battle over Brett Kavanaugh is Tom Jipping. He's the deputy director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. here at the Heritage Foundation.

Tom, let's start with Dr. Ford. We heard her testimony. Your thoughts on how that went. Well, her own opening statement was she simply read her prepared written testimony that she had previously submitted. The format, obviously, that they're using is a little bit different than for the typical hearing. She had requested some real limitations on the amount of time that each senator had to ask

questions. and I'm sure Democrats didn't like that, but that did come from Dr. Ford. Republicans chose to have a single outside counsel, someone Rachel Mitchell, who's from Maricopa County, Arizona, who has a lot of experience in sex crime cases. They yielded their time to her to ask questions. Democrats ask their own questions. And I think that reflects a very different approach that Republicans and Democrats were taking to this particular hearing.

So let's talk a bit more about that use of the prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell. You know, I have to say watching the hearing, it was sometimes a little bit jarring to hear the Democrats, very political questions, contrasted with her questions, which, to be honest, sometimes I was like, where are you going with this? Like, where was the polygraph administered? What kind of room in a hotel? What do you think she was doing and did it succeed? Well, there's pluses and minuses to the approach that Republicans took. Republicans really wanted to keep this hearing confined to the specific issue raised by Dr. Ford's allegation against Judge Kavanaugh. And to that end, they had the prosecutor come in and ask more specific questions about those accusations, trying to get out the facts a little bit. The risk in that is that it kind of comes off like you're cross-examining. her as if you were in a criminal trial, which of course this isn't. Democrats, on the other hand, wanted to approach this hearing very broadly as if it was

just on the issue of sexual assault. And so they asked very few questions of Dr. Ford and instead talked a lot about sexual assault and they talked about, you know, the dark culture in our country and all of these kinds of things. So, you know, the downside of that is that you really come across like you had described. You know, it comes across political. It comes across like they're almost not interested in what Dr. Ford was really specifically saying. At the end of the day, you know, this comes down to Christine Ford has made quite an uncorroborated accusation against Judge Kavanaugh, and he has unequivocally denied it.

I mean, that's really what this is. This hearing did really isn't probably very well equipped to, and it won't really shed. much light on that. I don't think many senators, if any, have not made up their mind. And if they haven't, I don't think this hearing will probably help them do that. Yeah, a lot of senators have been at a loss for what standard to use. In a court of law, obviously, you have very clear standards of evidence. And here, you know, it's really court of public opinion and what people seem to think at the moment. What is the proper standard that we should be going by here? That's the challenge for this. It is that mixture, because this is a confirmation process after all. It's not the criminal

justice system. Republican certainly didn't have to bring in a prosecutor to help with the questions. I can see why they did that, and it had some advantages. But this is not the criminal justice process. So there aren't rules like that. It's not beyond a reasonable doubt. It's not, you know, you have to establish people's credibility and all this sort of thing. It is at the end of the day a pretty political process. That's what it always is. Not every process includes these kinds of accusations that need to be addressed, but this one does. Some senators like Kamala Harris of California, I think we're kind of talking out of both sides of their head because on the one hand, she said to Dr. Ford, you know, this is not a criminal court. You're here voluntarily. And then in

order to criticize the majority for not asking for a separate FBI investigation. She cites a manual from the Maricopa County Sex Crimes Unit about best practices and the need for outside investigations. Well, you can't use the standards from a criminal justice process to criticize what is actually not the criminal justice process. So, of course, one of the things that came up in this hearing was, you know, the much sought after by the Democrats' FBI investigation, including some back and forth about whether that made any sense. Does this hearing change anything about whether it makes sense? Well, people don't understand, most people don't understand the difference between a confirmation process and the criminal justice process. The FBI is involved in both, but the FBI's role in

the confirmation process is at the request of the executive branch, because the confirmation process is a legislative branch process. And the FBI simply gathers information. It doesn't make credibility, assessments. It doesn't figure out who's telling the truth. It doesn't track down, you know, every lead the way they would in perhaps a criminal investigation. People don't necessarily understand the difference. So it's easy to confuse that and make it sound like Chairman Grassley and the majority really aren't doing their due diligence. But I think since this kind of a thing is so rare in the confirmation process, this sort of conflict with this disruptive sort of accusation I don't really think it'll have much in effect.

The downside is that, you know, Democrats know, especially those on the committee, they know that the FBI does not conduct the kind of investigations that they then said to the cameras should have been done. There's a little bit of deception going on there. The FBI does a good job, but it has a very limited role. So for Republicans, really, it's, even if they stand by Kavanaugh, they sort of have to bite the bullet of it appears that this woman had, a credible experience, even though there's no proof that it was Kavanaugh, what do they do from here? What do Republicans do? Well, no one came across as doubting or disputing that Dr. Ford was assaulted or that something traumatic like that happened. The question is whether Kavanaugh did it. And that's

where his unequivocal denial comes from. I really think that this hearing was sort of a draw in that respect. It really didn't answer that question specifically. It wasn't geared to do that. Senators are going to have to take what the hearing did provide, add that to what we already have been discussing for the last three months about Judge Kavanaugh and his record, and make a decision. The Judiciary Committee is going to have to meet soon to decide whether to approve the nomination and send it to the full Senate, where it will be debated. I do think if I were a betting man, that he will be confirmed. I think the chance of it. of him getting any Democratic votes are probably less than they were before. I hope he still

does because there's no reasonable justification for having this much opposition to a highly qualified nominee. But we're almost at the end of the process, but there are those final approvals by the committee and the full Senate that have to be given. So speaking about being almost at the end of the process, do you think there's any chance that either Deborah Ramirez, who accused Kavanaugh and the New Yorker on Sunday, I think it was public. or the other woman, Julie Swetnik, who of course is represented by Michael Avanotti, who does not seem to claim she was assaulted herself, but says there were a lot of parties with sexual misconduct that she alleges Kavanaugh participated in.

Do you think either of them gets a hearing? No. I think that effectively the way it's going to be treated is that Dr. Ford sort of stands in for all of those. everybody knows that there's even less corroboration for Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick's claims than for Dr. Ford's. I mean, when the New York Times and the New Yorker interviewed dozens and dozens of people and cannot find any corroboration, then it's probably a fairly weak case. So I think they're effectively going to treat this one as sort of standing for all of them. And as I said, I think it really does come to about a draw because certainly Judge Kavanaugh has denied all of them and saying that they did not happen. You know, some have said if he gets confirmed that the Democrats will want, you know, later one day and try to impeach him, do you expect that that's something they would try to do?

I don't think they would try to impeach him. But unfortunately, maybe one of the worst results from all of this is that the one branch of the, government, the judiciary, that hadn't really suffered a lot of, you know, credibility problems or attacks on their integrity, they're probably going to have that now, you know. Everybody thinks that members of Congress rank somewhere below psychics and car salesmen, but, you know, had fairly a positive idea about the judiciary. I think that's going to suffer now. How does this change future Supreme Court nominations?

Do you think this sets a new precedent, a new degree of assault that every conservative nominee is going to have to face? Well, we've been on this trajectory now for about 35 years. You know, maybe certain tactics haven't been used in the past, but the conflict is the same. The conflict is over how much power judges are supposed to have. We all know that one side of the political spectrum puts all their eggs. in the judicial power basket. They need the judiciary or they won't get anything. And so they're going to fight like crazy accordingly.

So we've been on this. This isn't new, unfortunately. The tactics, some of the tactics perhaps are. But I think we're going to be in this fight as long as we accept the idea that the judiciary has so much power that they literally can control the Supreme Law of the land. And as long as that's true, we're going to be in these kinds of fights. Okay.

Thank you very much for joining us today, Tom. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? Then subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a podcast breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. The Daily Signals, Kelsey Harkness and Lauren Evans caught up with Juanita Broderick, who accused former President Bill Clinton of rape at the pro-Cavanaugh rally Thursday. Here's part of what Broderick had to say to them. It's so important that the American people understand what Diane Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, and Senator Durbin did to me in 99. I had all the evidence in the world.

I had witnesses. I had injuries. I had dates and everything verified. This was in the NBC Dateline interview. And then when I was deposed by the independent counsel, Ken Starr's group, and they deposed me, and this became a part of the record of the impeachment, not one Democrat senator would read this, not one. They completely refused, and Henry Hyde would say to them, please, just read this woman's credible account of a rape by our sitting president, and they still refused. They would have nothing to do with it. So, you know, that was only, I guess, what, 19 years ago? Wow, it feels longer than that.

Not 19 years ago, not when the allegation happened, but when she came forward. Right, right, of course. Sorry. She alleged that Clinton raped her in 78, I believe. But it's something to say that both how times have changed and how they have not changed. Daniel, what do you think about her claims? Yeah, well, I was reminded of Keith Ellison. We've mentioned him before. The deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, he's also a congressman. he was accused of domestic violence and got hardly any media attention. So I think it really does show a selective outrage on the part of many on the left, frankly, over sexual assault and those kinds of things.

When powerful liberal politicians are being accused, very often it's political expediency that controls whether or not people on the left are upset over and going to pursue the truth. And I think we see that, frankly, with Kavanaugh right now. I would give a lot of Democrats the benefit of a doubt that they really do care about they really may believe Dr. Ford. But at the end of the day, what's driving this, I think, at the level of motives, is politics. Right. And I have to say, I think it's to Republicans credit that Dr. Christine Blazy Ford just got a hearing. You know, there are serious concerns about the lack of corroboration for her story. and a lot of the details that she has been unable to provide regarding the specifics of like when and where it occurred.

But, you know, that we had on Thursday a Senate hearing which examined, you know, those allegations that had her present that hadn't experienced prosecutors. We just discussed question her. And that's, yeah, that's very different than how Broderick was approached and how, as you mentioned, like Ellison's accuser's been approached. And the thing that makes it even more outrageous is it's not the right that is saying, believe all women. It's the left. And I mean, I have a lot of issues with that statement. I think many women do because, of course, women are not some angels who are incapable of lying or getting confused or getting details wrong. And, you know, we don't want a world in which women are sexually assaulted, obviously, and we don't want the men who do that to not be held to account.

But it's also just, you know, we also don't want men who are innocent held guilty just because some woman says they are. Yeah, I think it also shows you just how much impact the media actually has on the, based on the stories that they choose to shine the light on. Here, you know, when you look at some of the, all of the accusations since Kavanaugh, the media actively sought out these things, which is not to say they shouldn't look for truth, but especially with the New Yorker piece, which was just a completely, completely thin, thinly sourced. It was basically one woman saying that this happened. There was no corroborating witnesses. When the media goes out and searches for these stories, it can really dominate the news cycle, obviously, because they're the media. They can

choose what they want. And with Juanita Broderick, actually, I can't say because I wasn't really conscious of that time back in the 90s of what was happening, but it clearly didn't work out the same way. Right. I was actually told my parents I wasn't allowed to follow the news during that time period. I think I was around 11, but I still read some of it anyway. But no, I can't give you a detailed account of what Juanita Broderick, how much she was covered. But, you know, she mentioned she was, of course, interviewed by Dateline NBC. That was, of course, you know, NBC is a huge media property, obviously. But at the same time, yeah, she, I don't know about the contemporary coverage, but right now it's only the right that generally quotes or, you know, talks to Juanita Broderick.

there was a famous column called I believe Juanita in the New York Times last year by a liberal columnist. And Brodrick addressed it in her interview with Harkness and Evans and said, you know, if Hillary Clinton essentially hadn't lost in paraphrasing, I don't think that column would have ever been written. And yeah, I think it does go to that while conservative media has certainly dented the mainstream media, the mainstream media still thinks a lot alike and it does have a lot of sway still. And so I think when they ignore figures like Broderick, it's concerning. And I think they really can pick whose narrative they sort of advance and don't advance. Absolutely. Well, this saga is hardly over and will continue to cover it. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal podcast.

Brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google, Play, or SoundCloud. And please leave us a review or a rating on iTunes to give us any feedback. Rob and Jenny will be with you on Monday. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.