Controversy over Kavanaugh: Will high court nominee survive scrutiny?

By Askia Muhammad -Senior Editor- | Last updated: Sep 25, 2018 - 1:59:52 PM

WASHINGTON—Federal Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh—once on a glide path to an easy confirmation to serve on the Supreme Court—now faces accusations from two women, who claim that on two separate occasions he engaged in grossly inappropriate sexual behavior with them, while they were all students in the 1980s.

After two weeks of back and forth with the Senate Judiciary Committee, lawyers for Dr. Christine Blasey Ford—a professor at California’s Palo Alto University—announced a tentative agreement to appear at a Sept. 27 hearing to provide “her first-hand knowledge of Brett Kavanaugh’s sexual misconduct.” And now a second woman has come forward.

Dr. Blasey Ford claims that while they were both high school students attending a house party in upscale Bethesda, Md., near Washington, Judge Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, tried to remove her clothes and groped her, putting his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming after he and a friend locked her in a bedroom in 1982.

In the latest claim of misbehavior, Deborah Ramirez told The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer in a Sept. 23 report, that she was at a dormitory room party with Mr. Kavanaugh and several other students during Yale University’s 1983-1984 school year.

Ms. Ramirez said the group was playing a drinking game and she got drunk. Later in the evening she was on the floor and remembered a “penis being in front” of her face before she pushed the person away, causing her to touch it. She said she recalled Mr. Kavanaugh standing next to her, laughing and pulling up his pants. Another student then yelled down the hall: “Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis in Debbie’s face.”

Ms. Martinez conceded that there are gaps in her memory, and she said she was hesitant to come forward, afraid that she would be attacked because she had been drinking at the time. But she insisted her experience, along with that of Dr. Blasey Ford, should warrant an FBI investigation into the nominee’s behavior, an investigation Judge Kavanaugh and his supporters reject.

As with the charges from Dr. Blasey Ford, Judge Kavanaugh denied the claims from Ms. Ramirez in a statement to the New Yorker, saying the event “from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple.”

The New Yorker said it was unable to independently confirm if Judge Kavanaugh was at the party. The magazine said it interviewed several of Ms. Ramirez’s classmates who recalled being told about the incident in vague terms within days of it allegedly happening. Several others disputed the claims, saying the behavior was “completely out of character for Brett.”

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, American politician and member of the Republican Party.

In the wake of the latest charges, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, called for a delay in further consideration of Judge Kavanaugh after the second woman came forward. “I am writing to request an immediate postponement of any further proceedings related to the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh,” Sen. Feinstein, of California wrote in a letter to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee’s chairman. Republican senators instead, circled the wagons, so-to-speak, around the embattled nominee.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the 11 Republicans—all men—on the Judiciary Committee, made it clear that while he is willing to hear out Dr. Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegation, he has not heard enough evidence to “ruin Judge Kavanaugh’s life over this.”

“What am I supposed to do? Go ahead and ruin this guy’s life based on an accusation?” Sen. Graham asked rhetorically in an interview with “Fox News Sunday.” “I don’t know when it happened; I don’t know where it happened. And everybody named in regard to being there said it didn’t happen. I’m just being honest. Unless there’s something more, no I’m not going to ruin Judge Kavanaugh’s life over this. But she should come forward, she should have her say. She will be respectfully treated,” he added.

“It all looks very suspicious,” Professor Gloria Browne-Marshall, who teaches constitutional law at New York City’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told The Final Call. “The major issues we have are two. One, was he involved in this incident, and therefore it undermines his character to the point where people, even decades later should look at this and determine if that’s a big enough factor for them, not to allow him to ascend to the highest court.

“And so at this point, if Judge Kavanaugh has been found to be lying about this, not just bad memory, but actually lied about the incident, then it could be considered perjury, and perjury is a criminal offense because he made these statements under oath. Perjury should disqualify him from ascending to the nation’s highest court,” Professor Browne-Marshall said.

“The most important thing that has to take place is that the committee listen to her,” Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice told this writer in an interview for WPFW-FM, “not just hear her out, but listen, and listen in a respectful manner. She is someone who’s got a very credible, serious allegation,” Ms. Aron said of Dr. Blasey Ford’s charge.

“It’s critically important that the committee as a whole make sure that she’s given ample time to describe what happened to her, without fear that Republicans, particularly Republicans, will engage in a character assassination, such as the way in which they dealt with Anita Hill’s allegations 27 years ago,” said Ms. Aron, the attorney who literally delivered the explosive charges with which Ms. Hill came forward, accusing now Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his confirmation hearing in 1991.

“Republicans, then and now were engaged in fulfilling one mission, and that one mission was getting their nominee confirmed to a lifetime appointment in the Senate, no matter what. And then and now, a very important, very serious allegation has surfaced, and senators need to hear her out and believe her,” Ms. Aron continued.

Unlike in a criminal proceeding where the accused person is protected by the Constitution’s “presumption of innocence” until proven guilty, Judge Kavanaugh bears the burden of proof to prove he’s not guilty of these charges, his opponents insist. “It is his qualifications, his fitness, he is the one who has the burden of proving or showing, or demonstrating that in fact he did not engage in a criminal assault,” Ms. Aron continued.

“It is his burden to overcome, because after all he’s being considered for a seat on the highest court in the land, an incredibly influential position in our democracy, and once confirmed he will serve a lifetime, so it’s he who has to show the Senate and the American people that he did not commit this act.”

Like other areas of U.S. public life, the Supreme Court—to its detriment observers say—has descended into the arena of sharply divided partisan politics. “Now, the Supreme Court is just as politicized as the other two branches,” Prof. Browne-Marshall said. “It could very well be that the Democrats are saying, ‘We don’t want any conservative that’s been vetted through a process that they will have pledged almost to overturn Roe vs. Wade; investigate Hillary Clinton; and turn the clock back to the 1950s to a White, rich, male patriarchy.”

The Final Call