by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Things changed rapidly after I hit the "publish" button on yesterday's blog posting. At the time I completed my beloved, yet painful, morning chore, Senator Jeff Flake had just folded and announced that he planned on supporting the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The Republican steamroller had been fired-up and it looked as though Kavanaugh would be approved by a partisan vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee within the hour - as he ultimately was - and that he would be narrowly approved by the entire Senate within the next day or so.
The fix was in; the deed was almost done.
But then the Republican locomotive to glory suddenly went off the rails.
Two concerned women spotted Jeff Flake getting onto an elevator in the Capitol, and they proceeded to block the door open and verbally hammer the beleaguered senator on his support of Kavanaugh. One of the ladies recounted a sexual assault that happened to her and used that incident to challenge Flake's support of Kavanaugh to sit on the nation's highest court. The emotional encounter, which was filmed and quickly spread on social media, was very compelling.
Soon after that Flake met with some other senators who were not firmly cemented to Kavanaugh, and then he and Alaska's Senator Lisa Murkowski telephoned the FBI headquarters and got a confirmation that the agency could do a cursory investigation of the sexual abuse claims against Kavanaugh and complete that process within a week. That gave him a bargaining chip - and Flake used that chip to secure a deal with Senate leadership which would allow the FBI to conduct a brief review of the matter. Donald Trump concurred and ordered the quick and limited investigation - even as he blamed Flake for delaying the process - and the full Senate vote on Kavanaugh was put off for at least a week while the FBI looks into the claims by up to four Kavanaugh accusers.
I'm not a lawyer, but I have seen several fine actors play lawyers on television - and with that sterling legal background I see three distinct areas of concern regarding the Flake nomination. The first thing that seems to clash with the notion of wanting to get at the truth was the reluctance of the Republican majority on the judiciary committee and the nominee himself to push for an FBI investigation of the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh. There were questions that needed to be asked and answered, and clearly the Republican senators and Kavanaugh did not want to hear those answers.
The next curiosity was the nominee's reluctance to take a lie detector test - as his primary accuser had voluntarily done. As a former child abuse investigator who has worked with mechanical means like polygraphs (lie detectors) for getting at the truth, I know they are not perfect. But lie detectors are indicators of a person's truthfulness, and a good result would have put Brett Kavanaugh in an almost unassailable position and likely guaranteed his confirmation. But Kavanaugh demurred, noting that federal courts don't accept lie detector results. That position runs counter to a legal stance that he once took as a judge - one in which he approved of the use of lie detectors by potential employers. It was all exceedingly troubling.
And finally there was Mark Judge, Kavanaugh's bosom buddy from adolescence. Dr. Ford clearly stated that Mark Judge was present and watching as Kavanaugh tried to rape her, yet neither the GOP members of the judiciary committee nor the nominee himself had any interest in hearing from the one witness who could have conceivably sorted the entire matter out and put it to rest. And Mark Judge judiciously avoided telling his tale any place where he would have been put under oath. People who lie under oath are committing perjury, a crime.
It was all a wall of silence - no FBI investigation, no lie detectors, no testimony from a witness who was reportedly in the room and watching the incident. But now that wall is beginning to crack just a little. The FBI is looking into the matter, but Trump has limited their efforts in time and scope. It's not much, but it's far better than what we had yesterday when I hit that "publish" button.
Bless those two fine ladies who stormed that elevator and gave Jeff Flake a dose of humanity. Resist, persist, and insist on the truth - that will make America great again!
Citizen Journalist
Things changed rapidly after I hit the "publish" button on yesterday's blog posting. At the time I completed my beloved, yet painful, morning chore, Senator Jeff Flake had just folded and announced that he planned on supporting the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The Republican steamroller had been fired-up and it looked as though Kavanaugh would be approved by a partisan vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee within the hour - as he ultimately was - and that he would be narrowly approved by the entire Senate within the next day or so.
The fix was in; the deed was almost done.
But then the Republican locomotive to glory suddenly went off the rails.
Two concerned women spotted Jeff Flake getting onto an elevator in the Capitol, and they proceeded to block the door open and verbally hammer the beleaguered senator on his support of Kavanaugh. One of the ladies recounted a sexual assault that happened to her and used that incident to challenge Flake's support of Kavanaugh to sit on the nation's highest court. The emotional encounter, which was filmed and quickly spread on social media, was very compelling.
Soon after that Flake met with some other senators who were not firmly cemented to Kavanaugh, and then he and Alaska's Senator Lisa Murkowski telephoned the FBI headquarters and got a confirmation that the agency could do a cursory investigation of the sexual abuse claims against Kavanaugh and complete that process within a week. That gave him a bargaining chip - and Flake used that chip to secure a deal with Senate leadership which would allow the FBI to conduct a brief review of the matter. Donald Trump concurred and ordered the quick and limited investigation - even as he blamed Flake for delaying the process - and the full Senate vote on Kavanaugh was put off for at least a week while the FBI looks into the claims by up to four Kavanaugh accusers.
I'm not a lawyer, but I have seen several fine actors play lawyers on television - and with that sterling legal background I see three distinct areas of concern regarding the Flake nomination. The first thing that seems to clash with the notion of wanting to get at the truth was the reluctance of the Republican majority on the judiciary committee and the nominee himself to push for an FBI investigation of the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh. There were questions that needed to be asked and answered, and clearly the Republican senators and Kavanaugh did not want to hear those answers.
The next curiosity was the nominee's reluctance to take a lie detector test - as his primary accuser had voluntarily done. As a former child abuse investigator who has worked with mechanical means like polygraphs (lie detectors) for getting at the truth, I know they are not perfect. But lie detectors are indicators of a person's truthfulness, and a good result would have put Brett Kavanaugh in an almost unassailable position and likely guaranteed his confirmation. But Kavanaugh demurred, noting that federal courts don't accept lie detector results. That position runs counter to a legal stance that he once took as a judge - one in which he approved of the use of lie detectors by potential employers. It was all exceedingly troubling.
And finally there was Mark Judge, Kavanaugh's bosom buddy from adolescence. Dr. Ford clearly stated that Mark Judge was present and watching as Kavanaugh tried to rape her, yet neither the GOP members of the judiciary committee nor the nominee himself had any interest in hearing from the one witness who could have conceivably sorted the entire matter out and put it to rest. And Mark Judge judiciously avoided telling his tale any place where he would have been put under oath. People who lie under oath are committing perjury, a crime.
It was all a wall of silence - no FBI investigation, no lie detectors, no testimony from a witness who was reportedly in the room and watching the incident. But now that wall is beginning to crack just a little. The FBI is looking into the matter, but Trump has limited their efforts in time and scope. It's not much, but it's far better than what we had yesterday when I hit that "publish" button.
Bless those two fine ladies who stormed that elevator and gave Jeff Flake a dose of humanity. Resist, persist, and insist on the truth - that will make America great again!
1 comment:
Trump must be putting tremendous pressure on all republicans not to cave on Kavanaugh. The FBI investigation is a farce if it's done the way Trump has demanded, and he intends to have a vote immediately thereafter. Since Flake is basically saying he'll vote yes as long as any kind of investigation proceeds, it's unlikely that there will be enough resistance to keep this lying bastard off the court.
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