I know nothing about rules of committees or Senate protocol, but why don't they just do committee vote on Monday and schedule full Senate vote for Thursday night or Friday AM? If she brings 36 year old rape kit, video of incident, or sworn affidavits, then the full house can simply vote no or Trump withdrawals nomination.

No point to even hearing what she has to say realy, there is zero proof.

Sean Davis was reporting that sources told him that Flake was planning on voting "present" on the Kavanaugh nomination in committee. Flake later tweeted "Your sources are not accurate. I will not be voting present."

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
from the NYT article

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...d=nytcore-ipad-share

But in a setback for the woman, Christine Blasey Ford, Republicans on the committee received a statement on Saturday that seemed to eliminate any chance of corroboration of Dr. Blasey’s account by anyone who attended the high school party where she says she was assaulted.

A woman named Leland Keyser — who is believed to have been identified by Dr. Blasey as one of the five people at the party — told the committee through a lawyer that she “does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford.” Two other men have also told the committee that they also have no recollection of the events.

Kavanaugh - didn't happen
Mark Judge - didn't happen
Patrick Smyth - didn't happen
Leland Keyser - didn't happen

4 out of 5

still from NYT:

If no final deal is made, Mr. Grassley will be left to decide on Sunday whether to move ahead with a committee vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination that is scheduled for Monday, or give Dr. Blasey more time. Judge Kavanaugh, who has vigorously denied the allegations, has repeatedly expressed his desire to testify.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

at this point w 4 of 5 saying it didn't happen, and if Ford team won't agree to Ford first, Grassley should end it. Hold the confirmation on Monday.

With the information available, tremendous pressure should be put on Flake that he will be one of the most despised people in the country if he doesn't support one of the most qualified SC nominees ever.

Classic case of she said, he/he/he/she said.

No way to determine who's telling the truth here.

quote:

Originally posted by ChicagoSigMan:
Sean Davis was reporting that sources told him that Flake was planning on voting "present" on the Kavanaugh nomination in committee. Flake later tweeted "Your sources are not accurate. I will not be voting present."

Is he going on vacation again?

even more powerful

https://www.nationalreview.com...ccusers-allegations/

In written testimony sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee, a third named witness has rejected the allegations made by Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser. Having been asked by a Senate staffer to comment on the charges advanced against the nominee, a lawyer for Leland Ingham Keyser wrote:

Simply put, Ms. Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford.

Under 18 U.S.C § 1001, letters to the Judiciary Committee are subject to criminal penalty if false.

Ms. Keyer, whom CNN confirms is “a lifelong friend of Ford’s, is the third named witness to deny any knowledge of the allegations.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Keyser misspelled above, that is how it was in the article

CNN:

CNN has learned that the committee has reached out to a longtime friend of Ford named Leland Ingham Keyser.

On Saturday night, her lawyer, Howard Walsh, released a statement to CNN and the Senate Judiciary Committee..

"Simply put," Walsh said, "Ms. Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford."

The lawyer acknowledged to CNN that Keyser is a lifelong friend of Ford's.

The other two, Mark Judge and Patrick Smyth, issued written statements to that effect earlier in the week. Thus far, nobody has backed up the account advanced by Kavanaugh’s accuser, while Kavanaugh and three other named witnesses have rejected it outright.

This is a side matter, but it's interesting to see that CNN is resisting being taken along for the ride.

Some people have to touch the knife to see if it is sharp.

quote:

Originally posted by lkdr1989:
Bob Beckel's ex-wife.

Is this true?

Wow, that damn swamp is deeper than I imagined.

All those folks are from Maryland, no?

Question

If the letters from Kavanaugh, Judge, Smyth, and Keyser fall under

18 U.S.C § 1001, letters to the Judiciary Committee are subject to criminal penalty if false.

Why wouldn't Ford's letter that she sent to Feinstein also fall under 1001 ?

This article really infuriated me with all that Brett Kavanagh is going through and what he has to put up with especially considering how extremely well he did through the confirmation process garnering glowing praise until the witch Feinstein produced that letter at the last possible moment and then the MSM and even some democrats referring to him a rapist. What a travesty this nut case accuser has wrought. The sad irony is that Brett Kavanaugh is a man of character of several magnitudes higher than the low life democrats trying to destroy his. I hope republican and independent voters take notice and be first in line to vote on election day in November.

https://www.mysanantonio.com/n...to-save-13250333.php

'Incredibly frustrated': The GOP's effort to save Kavanaugh amid assault allegation
Seung Min Kim and Josh Dawsey, The Washington Post Published 6:43 pm CDT, Saturday, September 22, 2018

WASHINGTON - Just as he did several weeks ago to prepare for his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh was back inside a room at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building - again facing questioners readying him for a high-stakes appearance in the Senate.

This time, the questions were much different. An array of White House aides, playing the role of various senators on the Judiciary Committee, quizzed Kavanaugh last week about his sex life and other personal matters in an attempt to prepare him for a hearing that would inevitably be uncomfortable.

In his answers during the practice runs, aides said, Kavanaugh condemned sexual assault and carefully avoided seeming to discredit Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor in northern California who has accused the nominee of pinning her to a bed, groping her and putting his hand over her mouth to stifle her screams as he tried to take off her clothes at a drunken high school party in the early 1980s.

But Kavanaugh grew frustrated when it came to questions that dug into his private life, particularly his drinking habits and his sexual proclivities, according to three people famliar with the preparations, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. He declined to answer some questions altogether, saying they were too personal, these people said.

"I'm not going to answer that," Kavanaugh said at one point according to a senior White House official, who said the questions were designed to go over the line and that he struck the right tone.

The tense preparations underscore the monumental stakes of public testimony from Kavanaugh and Ford, who signaled on Saturday through her lawyers that she has accepted the Judiciary Committee's request to speak about her allegation next week, though there is no final agreement and Republicans viewed the response as a delaying tactic.

How Kavanaugh weathers the storm - and if enough Senate Republicans stand by him - will help determine the ideological balance of the Supreme Court for a generation. A handful of GOP senators are undecided about how they will proceed on Kavanaugh's confirmation, particularly in light of Ford's accusation, and the party faces a broader political challenge: keep their right flank satisfied by confirming a reliable conservative to the court, while minimizing backlash among female and independent voters ahead of the November midterms.

"The Republicans need women voters, but all hell will break loose (or it will be chaos) if this nomination unravels," Dan Eberhart, an Arizona-based GOP donor, wrote in an email. "If we can't get the nomination done, why vote Republican?"

The epicenter of the scramble to rescue Kavanaugh's nomination was inside the second-floor office of outgoing White House counsel Donald McGahn - the nominee's lead champion in the West Wing who, in coordination with Senate Republicans, had helped engineer a rapid transformation of the federal judiciary and was about to secure a second seat on the Supreme Court for President Donald Trump.

But instead of making the final rounds with senators and locking down pivotal swing votes last week, Kavanaugh was instead calling Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and other key allies, urging them to publicly support him and determining what questions he would face in a hearing that inevitably draws comparisons to the 1991 proceedings with Anita Hill, who had accused now-Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.

In one key call, Kavanaugh told Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that Ford had the wrong guy in mind, saying he had not attended a party like the one she described to The Washington Post. He and his allies also privately discussed a defense that would raise doubts that the attacker was Kavanaugh, rather than try to dispute that an incident involving Ford had happened.

In a preparation session on Tuesday, Kavanaugh faced more than a dozen White House aides in the Eisenhower building, during which aides played different senators for more than two hours.

Kavanaugh has complained about the stories focusing on his family and has grown "incredibly frustrated" at times, in the words of one associate, but he has not sought to drop out of the running, two people who spoke to him said. He has said privately and publicly that he is eager to testify.

Yet McGahn was originally opposed to a public hearing - as were many within the orbit of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., - but it became clear one would have to happen, two people familiar with their comments said. Ford, through her attorneys, said she would be willing to testify publicly, and several potential pivotal votes, such as Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., signaled that his confirmation could not move forward unless Ford was given a public airing.

McGahn has kept other key aides out of the process, afraid they would leak damaging material, relying on special counsel Annie Donaldson and spokesman Raj Shah. He has also talked on several occasions with McConnell, who is fond of McGahn.

Both men, along with other senators, have encouraged Trump to keep a low profile during the fight. His tweet on Friday morning in which he directly targeted Ford was not seen as helpful by White House aides, but Trump told senior officials that it was becoming a political issue that could affect the midterms. Republicans did not believe the woman's claims, Trump added privately.

McConnell called Trump Friday to say the tweets were not helpful, according to two people familiar with the call, and that they could cause new problems. As of Saturday, Trump had not said anything more directly against Ford.

Even before a final call on when or whether a hearing would happen, the preparations had long begun. Republicans wanted more information on what they viewed as potential gaps in Ford's recollection of the alleged incident, and to describe the extent of her previous relationship with Kavanaugh, aides said.

Republicans have also talked about enlisting female lawyers on the committee to lead the questioning who Grassley said would be "sensitive to the particulars of Dr. Ford's allegations and are experienced investigators." They might also help the GOP avoid an optics problem of 11 men grilling a woman about her sexual assault allegation.

The hearing could end "without new conclusive evidence either way," one senior Republican official said. "Members have to determine their threshold for credibility. And that will be the challenge."

Senate Republican officials had repeatedly vented in private that it seemed, at least to them, Ford's lawyers were doing more press than responding to their emails or requests for calls. Her attorneys would return that sentiment in kind, complaining in a late Friday letter to top Grassley aides that they would learn of the Republican hearing counteroffer "through the media" and got it officially through the committee "hours after those media accounts first appeared." On Saturday they accused GOP senators of "bullying."

Democrats are also plotting their own strategy for the hearing. Furious about Grassley's decision to limit testimony to just Kavanaugh and Ford, Democratic aides planned to find other potential witnesses - such as a trauma expert - who could help bolster their case.

If they couldn't be heard under oath, Democrats discussed holding news conferences where those other experts would speak, aides said. A top priority, according to Democratic officials, was ensuring Ford felt supported, whether it was having enough friends and family in the hearing room with her or finding people who can speak publicly about Ford's character.

"We're not accepting the premise that it's going to be a he-said, she-said hearing," one senior Senate Democratic aide said.

As for questions for Kavanaugh, Democrats planned to hold nothing back. Democratic staff have been researching the broader culture of the prep academy world in which Kavanaugh lived while reading the writings of Mark Judge, a Kavanaugh friend who Ford said was in the room when Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted her. Judge, who has said he doesn't want to testify, has written about how much alcohol he and his classmates consumed while in high school and details about other debaucherous behavior.

Democrats also planned to grill Kavanaugh on what he knew about a controversial Twitter thread from Ed Whelan, a prominent conservative lawyer and friend of Kavanaugh who not only theorized that Ford could have been assaulted by another person, but named the person whom Whelan suggested could have perpetrated the attack.

Another point of contention is Ford's July 30 letter outlining the allegations sent to Feinstein and Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. Republican senators, initially cut off from accessing the unredacted version of the letter, prodded Feinstein repeatedly to hand over her copy so they could conduct their investigation.

Feinstein gave the full letter to Grassley on Thursday, according to GOP and Democratic aides. Republicans have continued to harp on Feinstein for keeping the letter private, but she says she was honoring Ford's wishes and, now that it is part Kavanaugh's background check file, has declined to release it publicly.

"This is just bizarre," one senior Senate GOP official said. "They want her to publicly testify . . . but the infamous letter is still not public. They won't allow it to be."

Concur grumpy1 although much of my anger is directed towards the Senate Repubs who have allowed themselves to be played by the leftist Dems and this bullshit charge. That Friday deadline should have stuck and the vote proceeded with period.

Anybody catch Judge Jeanine tonight?

Apparently Ford's parents were in foreclosure in 1996. They lost their home. The judge ruled against them.

That judge...wait for it...was Kavanaugh's mother.

To quote the venerable Gomer Pyle, "Surprise, surprise, surprise."

This commie twat is toast and Justice Kavanaugh will soon be on the bench.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
Apparently Ford's parents were in foreclosure in 1996. They lost their home. The judge ruled against them.

That judge...wait for it...was Kavanaugh's mother...

Old news. Everyone's aware of this.

The ease at which the republicans consistently let the left (the supposed minority party) outmaneuver them is embarrassing.

The left has perfected the concept of "one team one fight" while the republicans act like a naive ten year old who just can't believe his friend Lefty, his bestis' friend in the whole wide world, would EVER be mean to him.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
The ease at which the republicans consistently let the left (the supposed minority party) outmaneuver them is embarrassing.

The left has perfected the concept of "one team one fight" while the republicans act like a naive ten year old who just can't believe his friend Lefty, his bestis' friend in the whole wide world, would EVER be mean to him.

I too often remark at how bad the Republicans are at politics, but in their defense, it's a lot easier when the media stands fully behind you waiting to support you with extensive positive coverage and amplification of your positions while failing to cover or giving negative coverage to your opponents.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
The ease at which the republicans consistently let the left (the supposed minority party) outmaneuver them is embarrassing.

The left has perfected the concept of "one team one fight" while the republicans act like a naive ten year old who just can't believe his friend Lefty, his bestis' friend in the whole wide world, would EVER be mean to him.

It's not that simple when you have the likes of Flake, Collins, and Murkowski in your party, and you must depend on their votes.

And there's the god awful media...

Thats exactly what I'm talking about. The left works for the team, the right works for the individual. No matter how good something may be for the country, the right askes themseves "how good is it for me?" Not the people who voted me in, not the nation and our way of life, but me.

You can bet your ass if the numbers were 51/49 the other way and a young progressive justice was on deck there wouldn't even be a question as to how it would go.

quote:

Originally posted by 12131:

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
Apparently Ford's parents were in foreclosure in 1996. They lost their home. The judge ruled against them.

That judge...wait for it...was Kavanaugh's mother...

Old news. Everyone's aware of this.

No. The home was in foreclosure, but was redeemed and the case was dismissed. Judge Kavanaugh’s mom, a judge, signed the dismissal order. They did not lose the home.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
The ease at which the republicans consistently let the left (the supposed minority party) outmaneuver them is embarrassing.

The left has perfected the concept of "one team one fight" while the republicans act like a naive ten year old who just can't believe his friend Lefty, his bestis' friend in the whole wide world, would EVER be mean to him.

You still don't get it? The left and right are team swamp they act in concert. By Grassley's own admission Schumer is conducting the orchestra. It is Trump and we the people. Beyond that we can trust no one. Like it or not Kavanaugh's confirmation is in true peril and every passing hour makes his confirmation less likely. Grassley is to blame but don't be fooled he is no fool he is just playing his part to all of our amusement.