Just ten days after the Ford allegations surfaced, a second allegation emerged, this one from Debra Ramirez, who claimed to remember an incident at Yale in which Kavanaugh supposedly exposed himself. The allegation was published uncritically by the New Yorker, after which the New York Times acknowledged passing up the story when witnesses would not corroborate it. Without vetting the allegations, Democratic senators responded by releasing statements demanding the White House rescind the Kavanaugh nomination. The committee would later reveal that Ramirez had contacted witnesses asking them to verify her story. None did.
Three days later, with the Ramirez allegations not yet discredited, another accuser came forward, this one represented by attorney Michael Avenatti. The accuser, Julie Swetnick, had a wild story involving a gang rape in high school. Like Ford’s attorney, Swetnick’s attorney played cat and mouse with committee investigators, promising evidence, but never producing it. Avenatti refused to allow Swetnick to be interviewed by the committee but did allow her to be interviewed by the media, where she would ultimately discredit herself.
The next morning, Ford testified for the first time—in public. While her story was heartbreaking, there was not one element of it that could be positively verified; this left the public and the committee to make their judgments based solely on emotions. Honestly, if I had such a witness testifying to something so personal and so painful, but who I knew could not corroborate her story, I would not put her in front of cameras for all to judge. If Democrats truly believed the allegations, why would they politicize, package, and market her pain for public consumption? Particularly given her inability to remember anything verifiable. They had to know her testimony would be deeply scrutinized. Why expose her in that way? It was a reprehensible and opportunistic display.
She told the Senate Judiciary Committee she was “100 percent certain” Kavanaugh was the one to abuse her. Later that day, Kavanaugh appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to defend himself. In no uncertain terms, he denied the allegations. During the follow-up questioning, Senate Democrats sought to shore up their narrative of Kavanaugh as a hard-partying frat boy. He was asked about a fourth accuser, Judi Munro-Leighton, who had emailed the committee claiming Kavanaugh raped her.
The media breathlessly reported, analyzed, and researched every word. For days the allegations against Kavanaugh filled every newsfeed, newscast, and newsmagazine. In the stampede to get the story first, news outlets relaxed their standards for vetting, airing allegations that would later prove demonstrably false. Kavanaugh would forever be associated with the narrative Democrats had created around him.
Moving the Goalposts
Now, of course, the speciousness of the Democrat narrative could no longer be hidden. With the realization that none of the accusers could produce verifiable evidence of their claims, the narratives Democrats had so carefully spun began to fall apart. Democrats have an answer for that, too. It’s called moving the goalposts.
Changing the criteria by which one party can declare victory is a political norm, but disingenuous nonetheless. They were frustrated over how many documents they hadn’t received. Then it was frustration over the volume of documents they received the night before the hearing. Then it was frustration over the volume of documents marked as committee confidential, as explained by Senator Durbin during the hearing. They argued that the public needed to see these documents. Then, as every document that they requested be reviewed and made public was approved, they started releasing committee-confidential documents and claiming they were breaking the rules. They later demanded an FBI investigation. Then, when it was completed, it wasn’t good enough.
A similar evolution would repeat the following year as the special counsel investigation similarly failed to produce evidence to confirm the narrative that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the presidential election. Once the results of Mueller’s investigation became public, the collusion narrative would be old and busted. An obstruction narrative would become the new hotness.
Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court was ultimately confirmed. When all was said and done, some of the truth came out. One accuser, Judi Munro-Leighton, would later recant, admitting she had made up the allegation. The progressive activist from Kentucky said, “I was angry, and I sent it out.” Likewise, Julie Swetnick walked back her allegation, claiming Avenatti “twisted” her words. Had the media vetted her claims more carefully, they would have discovered a long history of false allegations as well as a prior connection to Ford’s lawyer, Debra Katz.
Planned Parenthood stood behind the discredited accuser, tweeting in late October, “We still believe Julie Swetnick. #BelieveSurvivors.” Nevertheless, the committee found Swetnick and Avenatti had criminally conspired to make materially false statements to the committee to obstruct the investigation. Munro-Leighton, Swetnick, and Avenatti were all referred for criminal prosecution.
Democrats had a choice. They could have adhered to the process and procedures that have guided congressional investigations for decades. They could have thoroughly investigated the Ford allegations behind closed doors in a bipartisan manner. But they chose not to do that. They could have used transcribed interviews to keep her identity secret and protect her from a lifetime of harassment and notoriety. They could have sought for the truth as best they could find it. But they opted for the sensational. They opted for the theatrics. By choosing not to act in a bipartisan way, refusing to conduct private interviews, failing to keep the accuser’s name private, and not involving the FBI until the allegations went public, Democrats backed themselves into a corner.
The Cost of the Kavanaugh Approach
While Democrats realized short-term gains from their scorched-earth strategy for derailing the Kavanaugh nomination, there are long-term costs. Those costs come in credibility, damage to the Senate’s norms and institutions, and the opportunity costs of spending their political capital on partisan warfare rather than public policy achievements.
They also imposed a cost on Ford, Kavanaugh, and their families. Despite the lack of evidence, many Americans are left believing the false caricature of Kavanaugh as a drunken frat boy who routinely assaults women. As I was looking to refresh my memory of the outcome of the investigation, I tried a basic internet search using the names of the accusers. When I looked up Swetnick, Ramirez, and others, the only stories I could find were the ones reporting the allegations. Stories reporting the results of the investigation were few and far between. I finally had to turn to the memorandum released by Senate Republicans, which contained the full record of emails, text messages, interviews, and results from their investigation. The correction to the narrative was not amplified and was reported a small fraction as much as the original allegations. That is the danger of this false narrative strategy. It spreads misinformation and leaves broken hearts and broken lives in its wake.
In her urgent need to score political points, Senator Feinstein revved up the media machine to trample fundamental principles of due process and presumption of innocence. Unconstrained by truth, Democrats upped the stakes and lost sight of the boundaries of believability. As the plot became more and more sensational, the stalling and distraction came across as contrived, even forced. As the show wore on, our ability to suspend disbelief on so many inconsistent plot points evaporated. They unwittingly cast themselves as the antagonists. As they continued to move the goalposts, they came across as Keystone Cops who badly bungled this investigation. Dr. Ford herself came out of this all right, but the circus that surrounded her was so over-the-top it would have made P. T. Barnum blush.