following conditions:
• Kavanaugh was not to appear in the same room as Ford.
• Kavanaugh must testify first.
• Only senators could ask the questions.
• Mark Judge must be required to testify.
• Ford must have unlimited time for her opening statement.
• The number of cameras in the hearing room must be limited.55
Ricki Seidman, a longtime Democratic operative and Clinton White House insider, was revealed to be part of Ford’s legal team as well.56 The Weekly Standard had reported in 1996, “Seidman’s resume reads like a fantasy of liberal and Democratic activism.” She had been the legal director for Norman Lear’s People for the American Way, where she was responsible for the vicious attack ad on Robert Bork. While at Ted Kennedy’s office, she was credited with persuading the reluctant Anita Hill to come out with her harassment story. When the Judiciary Committee failed to listen, according to contemporary sources, Seidman helped leak the story to the press. She figures prominently in HBO’s pro-Hill drama Confirmation.57 When Kavanaugh was nominated, she was bragging of having worked on one side or the other of every Supreme Court nomination since the elevation of Rehnquist to chief justice, the sole exception being the Gorsuch confirmation.58
While they decided how to respond to Ford’s various demands, Republicans had one problem that required an unorthodox solution. Democratic senators had earlier complained that it was inappropriate for the Republican men of the Judiciary Committee to question Ford, so the Republicans were arranging for an outside lawyer to handle their questioning.
That Friday, President Trump’s uncharacteristic Twitter restraint finally ended when he tweeted, “I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!”59
Senator Susan Collins, whose support was indispensable, was appalled: “I thought that the president’s tweet was completely inappropriate and wrong.”60 Trump’s comments also dismayed his critics from the right who had grudgingly approved of his judicial appointments. Jonathan Last argued in the Weekly Standard that the nomination should be withdrawn and Kavanaugh replaced with someone who could be “portrayed” as more conservative. The Court’s rulings, he wrote, “would have more legitimacy in the eyes of the public if the deciding vote is cast by someone other than Brett Kavanaugh.”61
Whatever its rough edges, Trump’s statement did signal the administration’s willingness to stand behind Kavanaugh. A more productive, if no less fervent, show of support came from the Senate majority leader the same day. McConnell told an audience at the Values Voters Summit: “You’ve watched the fight. You’ve watched the tactics. But here’s what I want to tell you. In the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States Supreme Court.” Senate Republicans, he promised, were going to “plow right through it and do our job.”62 The crowd went wild.
Kavanaugh’s closest supporters were divided over how to proceed. The White House team wanted to fight, but his many friends from the Bush era encouraged an appeal to decency, rebutting the accusations but emphasizing his strong relationships with women. Such an appeal would be insufficient, the White House team thought, but it couldn’t do any harm, so they encouraged Kavanaugh’s friends to try it. On Friday, eighty-seven women who knew Kavanaugh throughout his life held a press conference. It received almost no media coverage.
Kavanaugh supporters were facing the reality that most of the media were not merely biased against him but were full participants in the opposition. The conservative group Concerned Women for America (CWA) brought its Iowa state director to Grassley’s office. CNN’s Sunlen Serfaty said there was no time to talk to her, even as the cable outlet pulled protester after protester out of the crowd to interview. Another CNN reporter pretended to be on a phone call when hundreds of female Kavanaugh supporters came to visit Flake. One CBS reporter flat out told CWA that he wasn’t there to cover pro-Kavanaugh forces.
One female Kavanaugh clerk who was doing extensive media in support of the nomination said she eventually realized that prerecorded interviews weren’t worth the time, since her statements in support of Kavanaugh would be edited out. The only way to break through was to do live interviews where producers couldn’t hide support for Kavanaugh.
Conservative and alternative media became a lifeline for the nomination. Outside groups began streaming their own rallies and advocacy efforts on