The Daily - The Accusation Against Brett Kavanaugh

Episode Date: September 18, 2018

Days before Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh was expected to receive a lifetime appointment to the country’s highest court, a woman has come forward with allegations that could derail his confirmation. He denies the claims, and both are now scheduled to testify. Guest: Sheryl Gay Stolberg, who covers Congress for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. Days before Judge Brett Kavanaugh was expected to earn a lifetime appointment to the country's highest court, a woman has come forward with accusations that could derail his confirmation. Accusations that Kavanaugh denies. Now, both are scheduled to testify.

It's Tuesday september 18th this is an nbc news special report good day everyone we're coming on the air with breaking news now from washington dc supreme court justice anthony kennedy has just announced his retirement after more than 30 years on the Supreme Court. So this story begins in late June when Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote on the court, announces that he's going to retire. This leaves a major opening on the Supreme Court of the United States for President Donald J. Trump to fill Anthony Kennedy a swing vote.

And it's huge news here in Washington. You are going to see 20 states pass laws banning abortion outright, just banning abortion. And because they know that there are now going to be five votes on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Because we're going to go from a 5-4 court with a swing vote to a court that is almost certainly reliably conservative. Sheryl Gay Stolberg covers Congress for The Times. A vicious but fast fight. That's what President Trump says he expects once he announces the second Supreme Court nominee of his administration. The guessing game is sparking fireworks this holiday week. And by the beginning of July, there's a shortlist coming out of the White House of people whom President Trump might nominate. On the president's shortlist of potential

Supreme Court nominees, Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Brett Kavanaugh, a former Bush White House official and current federal appeals court judge, is on the list. And out in California, there's a woman who does two things. She contacts the tip line of the Washington Post, and she also contacts her congresswoman, Representative Anna Eshoo. And she tells them both that she has a story about Brett Kavanaugh that she thinks they need to know. And what's her story? She tells this story in a letter to her congresswoman that when she was in high school

in the early 1980s, one summer day, she was at a gathering of teenagers in suburban Montgomery County, Maryland. It's a very wealthy suburb right outside Washington where Brett Kavanaugh grew up. And during this party, she says, Kavanaugh and a friend of his kind of force her into a bedroom in this house. Kavanaugh pins her down on the bed and jumps up on top of hers, grinding his body against hers and trying to rip her clothes off and her bathing suit, which is under her clothes. She tries to scream and he claps his hand over her mouth to muffle the screams. And then she says, the friend who's in the room is shouting things like, go for it, or at various times, stop. And then the friend jumps on top of them and she says that both of these young men were very, very drunk.

And they all tumble off the bed, and she manages to escape. She locks herself in a bathroom briefly, and she runs out of the house. It's a pretty harrowing story. It is a pretty harrowing story. It is a pretty harrowing story. And it's a very explosive story, given the stakes of this Supreme Court nomination. Why, Cheryl, are we just hearing about this now? Well, she wanted to remain anonymous. She didn't want to come forward.

She was worried about what it would mean for her and her family. And while she was discussing these allegations anonymously, President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court to fill Anthony Kennedy's seat. Judge Kavanaugh has impeccable credentials, unsurpassed qualifications, and a proven commitment to equal justice under the law. And what are the options at this point for The Washington Post, which has this tip from this anonymous woman, and for the congresswoman who has received a different form of the tip,

Anna Eshoo? So the options are really limited. Though she had contacted The Post, she did not want to speak on the record. And so really, they couldn't do a whole lot with her story. As for Anna Eshoo, in late July, she sends the letter to the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein of California because she's the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is, of course, the committee that will hold Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings. So this is kind of a loaded gun that Senator Feinstein

now holds. What are her options in terms of what she can do with this anonymous allegation of sexual assault by Judge Kavanaugh? So she can do a few things. She could turn this letter over to the FBI. She could share it with her fellow committee members. She could make it public, although that would violate the woman's explicit request to remain confidential. Or she could keep it to herself and not show it to anyone. So what does Feinstein do? Well, she kept it very close and showed it only to a few close aides. Hmm. And where is the Kavanaugh nomination at this point? President Trump's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court goes to Capitol Hill today.

He'll meet with lawmakers who'll be voting on his nomination. Vice President Mike Pence will escort Kavanaugh to Capitol Hill today where he'll start meeting with lawmakers. So the Kavanaugh nomination is percolating along. Judge Kavanaugh is having his courtesy visits with members of the Senate. Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing is scheduled to get underway on September 4th. Chairman Chuck Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee announces that he's going to have the confirmation hearings beginning on the Tuesday after Labor Day. Chuck Grassley, who controls that schedule, said it's all green, all lights are go for September 4th.

Brett Kavanaugh hearing will happen. And so Labor Day rolls around, and the next day, those confirmation hearings begin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Feinstein, members of the committee. Over the past eight weeks, I've witnessed firsthand the Senate's deep appreciation for the vital role of the American judiciary. for the vital role of the American judiciary. I'm struck that in this moment, when there's so much attention on sexual misconduct, and we're in this hyper-partisan moment where Democrats will do just about anything to try to stop Kavanaugh,

that Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, of all people, possessed this allegation and kind of just sat on it and allows this confirmation to go forward uninformed by this allegation. You know, Michael, I think that is very striking, but I think you have to know a little something about Dianne Feinstein to understand that. Dianne Feinstein is 85. She's been in the Senate for a long time.

Interestingly, she was motivated to run for the Senate by the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings. And she won as part of that so-called Year of the Woman in 1992. But Dianne Feinstein is kind of a traditionalist, an institutionalist. So she proceeds very carefully. She is a cautious person by nature. She values her relationships with members of both parties and with the Republican chairman, Senator Grassley. And she also knows that this woman does not want to be identified. So she just keeps a close hold over this. But all that being said, theoretically, shouldn't Feinstein have at least shared this allegation with her fellow senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are in the middle of questioning Kavanaugh?

And this is really their only chance to do that. Isn't the role of the committee to thoroughly vet this nominee? And wouldn't that seem highly relevant? You would think so, Michael. You would think so. But as the hearings are winding down, this letter is becoming an open secret on Capitol Hill. And lawmakers and reporters and aides

are speculating about what it might say. Somehow it has just gotten into the bloodstream up on the Capitol. Yeah, somehow it's leaking out. Okay. And The Intercept reports its existence Wednesday evening. And so Feinstein, on Wednesday night, convenes this meeting of her Democratic colleagues who are demanding to know what's going on. And she tells them about the letter, but doesn't show it to

them. And they say to her, look, if you're not going to show us this letter, you at least need to turn it over to law enforcement. So that's what she does. She sends it to the FBI. The FBI doesn't open a criminal investigation, but it adds the letter to Judge Kavanaugh's background file. investigation, but it adds the letter to Judge Kavanaugh's background file. That file is then shared with the White House on Thursday and then sent to Capitol Hill, where it goes to Senator Grassley's office so that other senators can review it. So now any senator on the Judiciary Committee can see it. This is kind of a fascinatingly circuitous journey because Dianne Feinstein literally sits next to Chuck Grassley on the Senate Judiciary Committee, but it takes this kind of long, weird trip from Feinstein to the FBI to the White House back to her seatmate,

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley. Exactly. Then the next day, Friday, the New York Times gets access to the letter and publishes its contents, but without the accuser's name. And what is the reaction to this letter and to this allegation becoming public? At first, Michael, it's kind of muted. And meanwhile, Kavanaugh categorically denies that any of this ever happened. He says he never assaulted anyone, either in high school or at any other time. But reporters now are really starting to dig into this, and they want to know, like, who is this woman? They're trying to find her. And the woman herself starts hearing stories circulated about her, seeing reporters, like, asking her colleagues about her, showing up at her home, showing up outside

the classes she teaches. And she starts realizing that this thing has spun out of control and she is going to be revealed whether she likes it or not. So she decides finally to talk to the Post on the record. And what do we actually learn when this woman decides to go public and to talk to the Washington Post? Who is this accuser? So she is Christine Blasey Ford. She's 51. She's a research psychologist and professor at Palo Alto University in Northern California. And we learned that she's really agonized over this over the years, that this has been really troubling to her, that she sought therapy over it. And at one point, her therapist advises or asks her to share this with her husband, and she does. caused her anxiety and post-traumatic stress syndrome for a number of years, that for four or five years after it happened, she wasn't able to have a comfortable, normal relationship with

men. We also learned that she had taken a polygraph earlier in the summer at the advice of her lawyer, who worried that exactly this would happen, that it would spill out into the public, and that there would be attempts to discredit her. So she took this polygraph test, and it comes back that she's telling the truth. And how does Kavanaugh respond once his accuser has come forward publicly? I know he had previously denied it, but that was when it was still an anonymous allegation. So he responds very vigorously in his own defense. He says, I have never done anything like what the accuser describes to her or to anyone. He says, because this never happened, I had no idea who was making this accusation until she identified herself yesterday.

And he also says he's willing to testify. So when Kavanaugh says that, that he's willing to testify, does it seem like that's actually a real possibility? Well, so at first it doesn't seem like a real possibility because on Capitol Hill, Republicans are really resistant. Senator Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, says he's going to go through what he calls standard procedure. And that is convening a conference call with Democratic and Republican staff to talk to Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Blasey separately.

But by mid-morning on Monday, things are already starting to change. morning on Monday, things are already starting to change because on Capitol Hill, senator after senator is coming out saying, we need to hear from this woman. Notably, Senator Susan Collins, the main Republican whose vote will be key to Kavanaugh's confirmation, come out on Twitter saying that Professor Ford and Judge Kavanaugh should both testify under oath before judiciary. You had Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, going on television saying, this woman will be heard. This woman should not be insulted and she should not be ignored. I think the Senate is headed to a reasonable approach.

And then you had President Trump himself sounding open to hearings. He is somebody very special. At the same time, we want to go through a process. We want to make sure everything is perfect, everything is just right. And he says, if it takes a little delay, so be it. It will take a little delay. I wish the Democrats could have done this a lot sooner

because they had this information for many months, and they shouldn't have waited till literally the last days. They should have done it a lot sooner. But with all of that being said, we want to go through the process. which seemed like such a sure thing, and the realization of this decades-long dream of a conservative Supreme Court, why would they be open to kind of essentially redoing his confirmation hearings or allowing for a new hearing in that confirmation process that could be so damaging to this nominee? Well, I think you have to think about this in the context of the era in which we exist. So we're in this Me Too era,

and you can't really just ignore this woman's allegations or railroad this confirmation through. It just, it won't work. So the White House has very little choice because you've got people like Jeff Blake, the Republican senator from Arizona, saying he doesn't feel comfortable voting for confirmation until he hears from this woman. So, in one sense, you know, what are they going to do? And in another sense, you know, they may be calculating that Kavanaugh is a pretty smooth character, and he will come off well at these hearings, and that they have a lot of evidence

from people who have testified to his character. So, maybe in the end, they think they will somehow be able to raise doubts about this woman's story enough that it will be viewed as something that was thoroughly aired and discussed. So by Monday evening, we have this complete reversal by Senator Grassley. He comes out and he says through his aides that he has set a hearing for next Monday that will effectively delay the Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Judge Kavanaugh and that he has invited both Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Blasey to attend and to testify in public before the Senate Judiciary Committee. And both have suggested that they very much want to do that. Both have suggested that they very much want to do that and are willing to do that.

So this has essentially become a remarkably high stakes and public case of he said, she said. Well, that's right, Michael. So now, you know, we face the very real prospect of Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas' redux, you know, live televised testimony over an alleged sexual assault with a previously anonymous woman and a man who is slated for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land, playing out in the middle of a midterm election season where Democratic women are already energized and Republicans are worried. We're in this swirl of politics and the truth. But in this case, Christine Blasey Ford has evidence, not overwhelming evidence, but some evidence that this took place. She has notes from her therapist. She has the discussion with her husband. And she's got this polygraph exam. So there is some evidence to back her up.

And it seems pretty clear that she was very significantly affected by her account, by whatever happened. And that's its own potential form of evidence in this debate. Yes, that's very compelling. So given that Dr. Blasey makes a compelling case that something did happen, are we looking, do you think, at the likelihood that this doesn't come down to a debate over how seriously to take the accusation? That it becomes more about whether or not Kavanaugh lied in saying that nothing of the kind ever happened, which he's now said twice. I think that's right, Michael. I think Democrats are going to make this argument very forcefully. And don't forget, Democrats are already accusing Judge Kavanaugh of having not been truthful at his past confirmation hearings and at this one as well. So Democrats are going

to hit hard, I think, on this theme of veracity. And is Judge Kavanaugh telling the truth? I believe her. Many, many, many Americans believe her. Many, many women in America who have been taken advantage of certainly believe her. For too long, women have made serious allegations of abuse and have been ignored or dragged through the mud. It would be a disgrace if this body and our fellow Republicans let that happen. But on the other hand, I think we're going to see Republicans really drill down into what precisely Dr. Blasey remembers and can prove. And we already know that she told the Washington Post that she couldn't remember what house this took place in, and she didn't remember the precise year. So it's certainly plausible that they would ask questions like, can you be 100% sure that Brett Kavanaugh was the person in that room with you? And, you know, perhaps they might suggest that it was just a case of mistaken identity.

That something did happen to her, but maybe it just was not with Judge Kavanaugh. It's interesting, Cheryl, when we think about it, this whole nomination process from the moment that Justice Kennedy retired has really all been about women, with the idea that the person who replaced Kennedy might overturn Roe v. Wade. And so this became a very partisan battle over whether Kavanaugh is a friend or foe of women. And it seems almost unbelievable that whether or not Kavanaugh is confirmed could now turn on an allegation from a woman of sexual assault. It really does, Michael.

You know, I was thinking about that this morning. The first story I wrote about the hearings was before they took place. And it was headlined something like, will Kavanaugh be an advocate for women or a foe? And it spoke about how Democrats were portraying him as bad for women. And Republicans in the White House were going to lay the groundwork

to show that he was really an advocate for women, that he had hired female clerks, a majority of his clerks were women, that he mentored women, that he helped promote them. But now it's come kind of full circle with these questions about Brett Kavanaugh and women coming up in an entirely different way. And in a way that could theoretically derail this nomination. Yes. And conservatives who thought they were so close to remaking the highest court in the land in their image might just see that opportunity slip away. Cheryl, thank you very much.

Thank you, Michael. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Good morning, everyone. The crisis in North Carolina continues. Catastrophic flooding and tornadoes are still claiming lives and property. On Monday, the death toll from Hurricane Florence rose to at least 23 people, most of them in North Carolina, including a one-year-old boy in Charlotte who slipped out of his mother's hands after their car became stuck in floodwaters. This remains a significant

disaster that affects much of our state. The next few days will be long ones as the flooding continues. After dropping more than 40 inches of rain in parts of North Carolina, the weakened storm is now moving west and north to West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and eventually New England before heading back out to sea. and eventually New England, before heading back out to sea. And... In Southeast Asia, Typhoon Mongkut, the most powerful storm of 2018, has killed at least 69 people, and likely dozens more, as it rages across China and the Philippines.

On Monday, emergency workers in the Philippines recovered more than 40 bodies from a gold mine after a massive mudslide caused by heavy rains buried both the mine and a series of nearby houses. Those missing now, when we approached them, they decided to stay because they said that both the mine and a series of nearby houses. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.