The protestors at the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings have been busy interrupting and harassing the Judiciary Committee. They’ve showed up each day, shouted out canned slogans and made a nuisance of themselves. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) encouraged them, saying, “I’m glad they’re here, they are exercising their free speech.”
Considering all of the manufactured media hysteria surrounding the Kavanaugh nomination, perhaps some protests should be expected. But the consistency of the protests and the canned rhetoric of the protestors suggests that they may have been coordinated by Democrats or one of their allied groups.
Author Adam Schindler was at the hearings and believes that someone is coordinating the protests. “These are not random protests,” Schindler reported.
Indeed, the protests do not seem random, nor does the Democrat strategy for opposing Kavanaugh, which was reportedly coordinated by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who convened a conference call with the committee’s minority members last weekend. The Democrats have chosen to delay, harass, and challenge Kavanaugh’s record, which includes serving the past 14 years on the D.C. Appellate Court. Are the Democrats colluding with the so-called protestors as well?
There is evidence that at least some of the protestors were paid.
Schindler posted that evidence on Tuesday in the form of a video showing three Texas doctors, who reported seeing a person with a “bag of money” paying potential protestors and explaining what was expected of them once inside the hearing — up to and including arrest. The doctors didn’t see how much the protestors were paid, only that money did change hands.
Dr. Tom Schlueter reported getting in line early on Tuesday for passes to get into the hearing only to find that dozens of anti-Kavanaugh people were already there. He also noted that at least some of those people were getting cash payments.
“One thing was there were people who had come along … who had a bag of money, and people would hand them a piece of paper, and then they would give them money. So we know money was exchanged for some of the people to be here, just to protest,” Schlueter said. “They were actually told, we heard them say this, ‘when you go in, we want you to yell, to scream, and even possibly get arrested.”
Doctor Chris Dundas of Corpus Christi, Texas, echoed was Schlueter was saying. “I gotta tell you, it was very sad,” Dundas said. “This is a very time-honored institution … and these young people (mostly young people, but some old people) they seem to have no heartfelt convictions about why they are here. If you have to pay somebody to protest, that’s a good tell.”
The eyewitness testimony was not Schindler’s only evidence. A photo he shared on Twitter appears to show a man paying a woman for something prior to the hearing. Later in the day, another photo showed that same woman being escorted from the hearings, purportedly for being disruptive. The next day, Schindler posted yet another photo of the same man exchanging something with yet another protester.
While many “true believers” are pointing out that Schindler’s evidence is circumstantial at best, there are other reasons to believe that the protests at the Kavanaugh hearings are definitely not of the grassroots variety.
Among those arrested were Winnie Wong, Linda Sarsour, and Bob Bland. Wong is a senior advisor to the Women’s March group and Sarsour and Bland were its co-founders. And Wong, for one, isn’t bashful about the fact that the Women’s March is one of the groups responsible for the protests.
“This is well organized and scripted,” Wong told CNN. “It’s exercising your constitutional rights.” Wong estimated that the Women’s March had been organizing protests for the Kavanaugh hearings for about a month.
While being arrested at the hearings on Tuesday, Wong called out, “For any senator who votes ‘yes’ on the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh there will be a political price to pay. That, to me, is an explicit demand and a promise.”
Wong confirmed that there was money being paid to some protestors, but that it was only in the $35 to $50 range and it was to pay bail for the expected arrests. Wong also claimed that the Women’s March had at least 300 people committed to “actions” during the week.
Even if Wong is being truthful and it was only small amounts of bail money being paid in return for protestor’s actions, this tarnishes whatever message that the Women’s March and any other group engaging in the practice is trying to send. Dr. Dundas of Corpus Christie, Texas, is 100-percent right when he says, “If you have to pay somebody to protest, that’s a good tell.” It’s a good tell that the cause is bogus and that the people protesting aren’t really all that committed to it.
Photo: AP Images
