A HuffPost–YouGov poll showed that only 28 percent of males and 25 percent of females found Ford’s allegations credible and that the allegations had not changed their positions on Kavanaugh’s confirmation.32 But other polls showed a decline in support for Kavanaugh.33 Vanity Fair reported that Ivanka Trump had advised her father to “cut bait” and drop the nomination.34
The media continued to report that Ford’s allegation was bad for Republicans and good for Democrats, but there were reasons to believe that this message was at the very least overhyped. Democrats in high-profile Senate races were keeping their distance from the Ford story. Phil Bredesen, running for the open seat in Tennessee, even said that the Judiciary Committee should vote if Ford did not show up to testify.35
Senator John Cornyn of Texas explained on Tuesday why Republicans were eager to have a hearing where questions could be posed: “The problem is, Dr. Ford can’t remember when it was, where it was, or how it came to be. There are some gaps there that need to be filled.”36 Cornyn had simply stated the facts. Those were enormous gaps in an accusation of sexual assault that was intended to keep one of the nation’s most distinguished judges off the Supreme Court. But the media responded as if Cornyn were maliciously sowing doubt about an account that anyone of sound mind must regard as unimpeachable. Referring to Cornyn’s statement, CNN’s Chris Cillizza tweeted: “Walking a VERY dangerous line here.”37
By contrast, it was not considered a dangerous line to misconstrue jokes made by Kavanaugh. On Tuesday, liberal media outlets and Democrats began sharing an edited clip from a speech Kavanaugh had given at Catholic University’s law school in 2015. He had said:
By coincidence, three classmates of mine at Georgetown Prep were graduates of this law school in 1990 and are really, really good friends of mine. Mike Bidwill, Don Urgo, and Phil Merkle, and they were good friends of mine then and are still good friends of mine, as recently as this weekend when we were all on email together. But fortunately, we had a good saying that we’ve held firm to this day as the Dean was reminding me before the talk, which is “What happens at Georgetown Prep, stays at Georgetown Prep.” That’s been a good thing for all of us, I think.38
The audience laughed. MSNBC aired just the portion after the word “fortunately,” giving the impression that the prep school buddies covered up sexual assault with a code of omertà. Elizabeth Warren tweeted the truncated video with the comment, “I can’t imagine any parent accepting this view. Is this really what America wants in its next Supreme Court Justice?”39 When CNN aired the clip, its White House reporter Jim Acosta added, “There are portions of his childhood he’d rather not come to light.”40 Politico, USA Today, and the Washington Post all reported the remarks as if they were newsworthy rather than acknowledging an obvious jest based on Las Vegas’s familiar tagline.41
By Wednesday, social media swirled with reports that a witness had finally emerged who could corroborate Ford’s account. “The incident DID happen, many of us heard about it in school,” wrote Christina King Miranda on Facebook. She repeated her story on Twitter: “The incident was spoken about for days afterward in school. Kavanaugh should stop lying, own up to it, and apologize.”42 It was a curious assertion, since Ford herself said she hadn’t told anyone about the assault for decades. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Republican staff immediately asked Miranda for more information. She deleted her note within hours, admitting she had posted it because she had felt “empowered” and was sure the assault had happened, despite having no knowledge of it. “I had no idea that I would now have to go to the specifics and defend it before 50 cable channels and have my face spread all over MSNBC news and Twitter,” she told National Public Radio.43 She tweeted that the post had “served its purpose,” which apparently was to use a deliberate lie to make Kavanaugh “stop lying.”44
Hours after Miranda had deleted her post and admitted that she had no knowledge of the attack, NBC published a story about her headlined, “Accuser’s Schoolmate Says She Recalls Hearing of Alleged Kavanaugh Incident.” It was modestly edited the next day, although the discredited headline remained the same.45
Miranda’s wasn’t the only story that day to take off in the media but be quickly disproved. The HuffPost published an anonymous report that Amy Chua and her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, both professors at Yale Law School, had advised a female law student who was applying for a clerkship with Kavanaugh that the judge liked the women in his chambers to have a “certain look.”46 NBC News and The Guardian also picked up the story.47 Chua was said to have recommended that the woman, whose friends described her as “awkward,” work on professional dress. This tale of helpful woman-to-woman mentoring was presented as evidence of Kavanaugh’s inappropriate treatment of women.
The dean of Yale Law School, wringing her hands, declared the allegation to be “of enormous concern,” and the school promised a full investigation.48 One of Chua’s former students, the writer Abigail Shrier, asked, “What McCarthyist hell are we living [in]?”49 Chua called the story “outrageous and 100% false.”50 “Yale law professor denies reports she groomed Kavanaugh’s prospective clerks,” wrote NBC.51
As the media chased ephemera, the Judiciary Committee was slowly gathering testimony relating to Ford’s allegations. She had said that four persons were at the party with her. Kavanaugh had already categorically denied that he was there. Mark Judge had also submitted a statement to the committee saying he didn’t remember any such party and that Kavanaugh never behaved as described. On Wednesday a third person, Patrick “P.J.” Smyth, identified as having been at the party, submitted his own statement: “I have no knowledge of the party in question; nor do I have any knowledge of the allegations of improper conduct [Ford] has leveled against Brett Kavanaugh.” He added, “Personally speaking, I have known Brett Kavanaugh since high school and I know him to be a person of great integrity, a great friend, and I have never witnessed any improper conduct by Brett Kavanaugh towards women.”52
Grassley was determined to keep things moving. He announced that Ford had until Friday morning to provide prepared testimony for Monday’s hearing.53
Late on Thursday, a prominent conservative judicial scholar posted a series of tweets that suggested a possible case of mistaken identity. Rumors had been circulating that Ed Whelan, the respected head of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) and a friend of Kavanaugh’s, had exonerating information. Curiosity was high. In the tweets, he noted that none of the persons identified as being at the party lived close to the Columbia Country Club, which Ford said the party was near. None of them had homes that matched the description she had provided to the Post. And it was unlikely, he suggested, that no one at the party lived in the house where the party took place. He then posted a photograph of one of Kavanaugh’s high school classmates and the floor plan of the boy’s house, which was compatible with Ford’s description of the house where the party was. That house was within walking distance of the Columbia Country Club. Finally, the boy bore a resemblance to Kavanaugh.
Even though Whelan had said he wasn’t accusing the other man, now a middle school teacher, of any wrongdoing, reporters and observers felt he had done just that. Supporters of Kavanaugh immediately distanced themselves from the tweets. The media pounced. Whelan offered his resignation from the EPPC, which was declined by the board of directors. He deleted the tweets within hours and apologized for “an appalling and inexcusable mistake of judgment in posting the tweet thread in a way that identified Kavanaugh’s Georgetown Prep classmate.”54 Reporters speculated that he had hatched the plan with Kavanaugh or the Federalist Society, but Whelan said he bore full responsibility.