Attention to the Unseen

Yascha Mounk writes: At this moment of feverishly intense partisanship, it takes a great deal of courage to tiptoe away from your own tribe. Sen. Jeff Flake has not yet announced that he is willing to part for good; in the end, he may yet betray his professed principles and cast his vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh. And yet, we should not underestimate how much strength it took for him to demand an investigation into Christine Blasey Ford’s serious allegations…

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Caleb Mason, a litigator and former federal prosecutor, writes: There’s nothing arcane or even particularly difficult about the investigatory steps the government could take to reach a reasonable factual conclusion about the Kavanaugh allegations. I simply cannot understand why the Judiciary Committee refuses to use the resources it has—namely, subpoena power, through which the committee can compel witnesses to testify and produce documents. The committee’s approach to the Kavanaugh hearings reinforces the false image of trial practice as just throwing…

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Mark Joseph Stern writes: On Wednesday, attorney Michael Avenatti revealed a sworn declaration by his client, Julie Swetnick, alleging that, while in high school, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh targeted women for group sexual assault. Swetnick’s horrific allegations, put forth under penalty of perjury, describe “numerous boys” drugging and raping young women in Maryland during the early 1980s. Her declaration contradicts Kavanaugh’s statements while bolstering the accusation of Christine Blasey Ford, who claims a very drunken Kavanaugh and his friend…

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The Washington Post reports: On Monday night, Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh said in a nationally televised interview that in his younger years, he was focused on sports, academics and “service projects.” But it was his comments about drinking that rankled some Yale University classmates, prompting them to speak out for the first time. Liz Swisher, who described herself as a friend of Kavanaugh in college, said she was shocked that — in an interview focused largely on his…

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Mike Zubrensky writes: From August 2010 to January 2017, I served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy. In the role, I supervised the vetting of about 300 judicial nominees and reviewed the FBI’s background investigation report for each nominee. We initiated a supplemental investigation of a judicial nominee on numerous occasions. These would occur after the FBI had already conducted basic background vetting, but when there were factual discrepancies in an FBI…

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Gabriel Sherman writes: On Monday morning, a Republican briefed on Trump’s thinking said the president has been considering pulling Kavanaugh’s nomination. According to the source, Trump allies are imploring him to cut Kavanaugh loose for the sake of saving Republicans’ electoral chances in the midterms. The argument these advisers are making is that if Kavanaugh’s nomination fails, demoralized Republicans will stay home in November, and Democrats will take the House and the Senate and initiate impeachment proceedings. The end result:…

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Benjamin Wittes writes: The question before us … is not whether to punish Kavanaugh or whether to assign liability to him. It’s whether to bestow on him an immense honor that comes with great power. Kavanaugh is applying for a much-coveted job. And the burden of convincing in such situations always lies with the applicant. The standard for elevation to the nation’s highest court is not that the nominee established a “reasonable doubt” that the serious allegations against him were…

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The Washington Post reports: Just as he did several weeks ago to prepare for his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, Brett M. Kavanaugh was back inside a room at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building — again facing questioners readying him for a high-stakes appearance in the Senate. This time, the questions were much different. An array of White House aides, playing the role of various senators on the Judiciary Committee, quizzed Kavanaugh last week about his sex life and…

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Politico reports: Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham, once a top recruit to serve as White House press secretary, was early out of the gate on Friday with urgent advice for the president. “Rod Rosenstein must be fired today,” she tweeted, after the New York Times reported that the deputy attorney general had floated the idea of wearing a wire in the Oval Office and removing the president from office by invoking the 25th Amendment. Ingraham, one of the 47 feeds…

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The Associated Press reports: To the uninitiated, Georgetown Preparatory School feels less like a high school than a well-heeled liberal arts college. The 93-acre campus in a Maryland suburb of the nation’s capital boasts a state-of-the-art athletic center, a nine-hole golf course, and its own gift shop. Gardeners crisscross the grounds on carts. This is where U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh spent most of his teen years. And exactly what happened one summer night during that time has become…

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