If Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina gets his way, Christine Blasey Ford and her attorney, Debra Katz, will answer questions about Ford’s 11th-hour, unproven claims of sexual assault that nearly derailed the nomination of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Tillis would re-open the controversy because of Katz’s seeming admission that Ford’s ulterior motive in coming forward was to stop Kavanaugh because he might vote to overturn 1973’s Roe vs. Wade decision if it came before the court.
Ford’s unproven, suspiciously timed allegations invited a cascade other unsubstantiated claims that reached a crescendo with the preposterous charge that Kavanaugh was the criminal mastermind of weekend gang rape parties that not only went unreported for more than 30 years, but also escaped the FBI’s notice through six background investigations.
Katz Video
Tillis appeared on Outnumbered Overtime yesterday and told the program’s hostess, Harris Faulkner, that Katz might well have divulged the real motive why Ford tossed a last-minute grenade.
“I think it’s worth just checking off the facts,” Tillis told Faulkner. “We had a number of people on the other side of the aisle undermining the credibility of the [Judiciary] committee by threatening to expose information that was committee confidential.”
Katz’s remarks surfaced yesterday at The Daily Caller, which posted video reported in the just-published Search and Destroy: Inside the Campaign Against Brett Kavanaugh, by Ryan Lovelace.
In April, Katz spoke at a “feminist legal theory conference,” whatever that might be, and discussed “Applied Feminism and #MeToo.” The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that Katz admitted the real reason for Ford’s dubious claims: wrecking Kavanaugh.
“I believe that Christine’s testimony brought about more good than the harm misogynist Republicans caused by allowing Kavanaugh on the court,” the left-wing lawyer said. “He will always have an asterisk next to his name. When he takes a scalpel to Roe v. Wade, we will know who he is, we know his character, and we know what motivates him, and that is important; it is important that we know, and that is part of what motivated Christine.”
That comment perked Lovelace’s interest, DCNF reported.
“A lot of people ask if Christine Blasey Ford was lying,” Lovelace told the DCNF.
“To know that, you have to know her motivation,” the author continued. … [H]er lawyer says that she is motivated, at least in part, by Roe v. Wade protecting legalized abortion….”
“Before the confirmation, Ford had maintained that she came forward out of a sense of civic duty to provide information that she thought senators needed to know before voting on Kavanaugh,” Lovelace wrote.
As well, DCNF reported:
Katz also discussed the role Ford’s race played in the Kavanaugh hearings, Lovelace told the DCNF. Katz suggested at the same Baltimore conference in April that Ford’s race, background, class, and academic record made it possible for Ford to accuse Kavanaugh.
“We must ponder the very real possibility that had Dr. Ford not come from the same background, and the same race, and the same class, and the same country club as Brett Kavanaugh, had she not had an impeccable academic record, and stellar professional credentials, if she was not on the faculty of Stanford with 70 publications to her name, if she wasn’t married to a man with two children, would she have been given the opportunity?” Katz said in April, according to a passage from “Search and Destroy.”
Truth Needed
But Ford’s academic credentials and substantial wealth are irrelevant to the truth.
“We have to always make sure that when people come and give sworn testimony before any congressional committee, that it’s truthful and accurate,” Tillis told Fox’s Faulkner. “Any time that you see something like this, it’s probably worth looking into.”
“There was no doubt that there were a number of people who are politically motivated to tear apart [Kavanaugh’s] stellar reputation,” he said.
The question is whether either the Senate Judiciary Committee or the Justice Department has the stomach to re-open the matter.
After allegations from Ford and other women, the FBI investigated Kavanaugh again before his confirmation vote in the Senate. The agency found no evidence of wrongdoing. The prosecutor Senate Republicans brought in to question Ford reported that her own witnesses did not corroborate her accounts. Other witnesses and an investigative report from RealClearInvestigations suggestded that Ford committed perjury.
Ford, a wealthy college professor, collected nearly $1 million through GoFundMe accounts set up on her behalf.
Photos of Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh: AP Images
