Power Grab - Jason Chaffetz Page 0,38

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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.

Missouri senator Claire McCaskill, who lost a close race to Republican Josh Hawley in 2018, told news outlets the “spectacle” created by the Kavanaugh hearings hurt her with voters. “I don’t think my vote [against Kavanaugh] hurt me as much as the spectacle that occurred,” McCaskill told NPR after her defeat. “There were mistakes made by my party in terms of how that was handled.”

With Democrats now in control of the House, there are lessons to be learned from the Kavanaugh hearings—for all parties concerned. While I won’t be holding my breath for Democrats to learn them, I do think there is value for voters in seeing the show for what it is. The sooner voters are able to see through the smoke and mirrors, the sooner we can unite to reject these damaging and divisive truth-free theatrics for the power grab they are. We can start by recognizing elements