Then, pondering the newly revealed details of the accusation, Kavanaugh realized that crucial evidence of his innocence might be sitting in his basement. His father had started keeping detailed daily calendars in 1978. Kavanaugh followed suit in 1980, continuing the practice with more or less diligence ever since. These detailed daily records, almost like a diary, provided contemporary evidence of where he had been and what he had done almost every day of his life since high school. He went to the basement and pulled out his calendars for the summer of 1982 to see what they showed.
Reviewing those calendars was like traveling back in time to high school. He was preoccupied with colleges, basketball camp, going to the beach with his friends, and visiting his “Gramy” in Connecticut. Above all, he was focused on sports, which had been an obsession since he started playing basketball in the fourth grade and football and baseball in the fifth grade.
He would continue with basketball and football throughout high school. When he wasn’t playing or practicing sports, he was thinking about them or watching games on television. He went with his father to Redskins football games, Washington Bullets basketball games, Baltimore Orioles baseball games, and Washington Capitals hockey games. They’d also attend University of Maryland basketball games.
Sports focused his competitive instincts, taught him how take a hit and get back up, and provided camaraderie. He broke his collarbone in the ninth grade in football practice. The pain was brutal, but even worse was missing the last two games of the season and half the basketball season. Being sidelined so long drove him crazy, but it taught him patience.
His own coaches taught him lessons he’d later impart to the athletes he coached—keeping things in perspective and being sure you could say you gave it your all even if you lost. He learned about the importance of practices, workouts, and summer preparation. And he learned about the bonding that comes from being on a team with a great work ethic.
Usually he took more from the losses than the wins, but some of the wins were unforgettable. In seventh grade, his football team crushed a rival, twenty-six to nothing. On the bus ride home, the boys were screaming with excitement. Their coach, who was driving the bus, pulled over and put the flashers on. They prepared to get yelled at. Instead, he stood up and shouted, “I’m so proud of you guys!”
Besides the endless practices and games, Kavanaugh’s calendars noted social activities and parties. After an event, he would return to its entry to add the score of a game or note who was at a party. Neither Christine Blasey nor a party like the one she described was mentioned. In fact, the calendars showed that he had been out of town almost every weekend that summer. By 1982, girls were on his radar, but he was known among his female friends as the opposite of what Ford described. He would talk on the phone with his many female friends, help them with their homework, and lightly discuss the girl he was interested in at the time. One woman said he was like a gay friend you’d feel comfortable having your daughter hang out with, except he was not actually gay. His girlfriends from high school reported that he was fun to go out with and had demonstrated nothing remotely close to the aggressive behavior Ford had asserted. He was confident that he could convince any fair-minded observer that he was innocent.
CHAPTER SIX
Delay, Delay, Delay
Within hours of the publication of Emma Brown’s story in the Post, senators called for the vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination to be delayed. Calls for delay were nothing new, but this time it wasn’t only the Democrats or members of the Judiciary Committee. Jeff Flake told a reporter that he didn’t want to vote until the committee heard more from Ford, and his Republican colleagues Bob Corker of Tennessee and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska also pushed for a delay.1 Flake’s undisguised dislike for Donald Trump was so unpopular with Arizona Republicans that he had decided not to run for reelection in 2018. Journalists now speculated that Flake’s support for a delay was an act of revenge against the president.2
Mitch McConnell was opposed to reopening the hearings, and he initially thought he could keep the committee from doing so. Grassley also opposed reopening the hearings. Both felt that giving Kavanaugh’s opponents a televised platform would be a mistake. Nobody wanted a reenactment of the melodramatic Clarence Thomas–Anita Hill hearings. And nobody wanted to establish the precedent of an uncorroborated allegation against a nominee triggering a full Senate hearing. Reopening the hearings would also invite additional unverified accusations. McConnell and Grassley preferred to conduct a responsible investigation—as they would have done had the information been properly disclosed to the committee and the FBI—and leave it at that. But now other Republican members on the committee were calling for more hearings, and with a one-vote majority there was no room for error.
Leonard Leo, still on leave from the Federalist Society to help with the confirmation, began collecting intelligence on how seriously senators were taking the matter and what they would require to move on. As a way of gauging their sentiments, he asked them if they thought the administration needed a “Plan B”—that is, an alternative nominee. As soon as the Intercept story had hit, some people thought it would fade away. By the time Ford’s name was public, it was clear to Leo that they faced a replay of the attack on Clarence Thomas and an aggressive battle plan was needed. He began raising money for the ads that would be run between the anti-Kavanaugh “news” segments dominating the airwaves.
The reaction to Ford’s accusation was intensified by the ongoing #MeToo movement, which encouraged women to disclose their experiences of sexual harassment or assault. In the past year, powerful men in the entertainment industry, government, academia, and business had been brought down by such accusations.
One dogma of the #MeToo movement, which by now commanded the allegiance of the press, progressive activists, and most Democratic politicians, was that every woman who makes an allegation must be believed.3 Supporters of due process rejected the slogan “Believe Women” and the presumption that no accusation of sexual harassment is ever malicious or mistaken, arguing that accusers should be treated with respect but that charges must be investigated.
Soon after Ford’s allegations were made public, Senator Susan Collins was asked if she believed her. “I don’t know enough to create the judgment at this point,” Collins replied.4 But other prominent women were less modest about their grasp of the facts. An article in The Atlantic by Caitlin Flanagan was headlined, “I Believe Her: When I Was in High School, I Faced My Own Brett Kavanaugh.” Flanagan believed Ford’s accusation because a different boy had tried to rape her when she was in high school.5
Within hours of the publication of Brown’s story in the Post, journalists began speculating that the nomination might be withdrawn. Roll Call, citing concerns for the judge’s young daughters, said, “Kavanaugh might decide to spare his family what inevitably will be a few weeks of scrutiny and discussion about Ford’s charges.” And if he didn’t, the story added, the White House might pull his nomination anyway.6
Reporters were hounding those who had spoken on behalf of Kavanaugh, particularly the women who had known him in high school. Many had to turn off their social media accounts to avoid the deluge of phone calls and emails. But not responding to reporters was treated as a tacit admission that one no longer believed in Kavanaugh’s innocence. The HuffPost tried to ask scores of friends and students who had expressed support for Kavanaugh’s appointment if they still supported him. The “vast majority” did not reply, and the HuffPost acknowledged that it did not know how many had even noticed its request for a comment. Almost all who did reply said they continued to support him. (Such support was becoming costly; nearly a third of the former students who still voiced their support did not want their names published.) Nonetheless, the story’s headline ran, “Brett Kavanaugh’s Supporters Now Far More Reluctant to Speak Up Publicly.”7 In fact, people working on the nomination cited Kavanaugh’s incredible base of support among friends as one of the reasons they were willing to fight for him. Raj Shah had worked on other confirmation battles that had heated up and noticed that some nominees’ friends would back out. But Kavanaugh’s friends and colleagues were unflinching.