According to the Washington Post, the vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination will occur next Thursday, September 20, as scheduled. This could change, I suppose, but that’s how things stand now.
Notwithstanding the ambush of Judge Kavanaugh with a claim of sexual harassment from 35 years ago by a woman who won’t disclose her identity, the votes exist for the committee to approve Kavanaugh’s nomination. The real question is whether the votes exist in the Senate as a whole to confirm him.
The ambush of Kavanaugh is aimed at Senators Collins and Murkowski, neither of whom sits on the Judiciary Committee. It may also be aimed at certain Senate Democrats facing tough reelection campaigns. They aren’t on the committee either.
The only other new information I have, via sources, is that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who referred the allegation against Kavanaugh to the FBI and who has known about it for months, apparently did not attend the closed Judiciary Committee session at which Kavanaugh testified. In these sessions, sensitive material can be discussed outside of the public domain. Yet, Feinstein chose not to discuss it, or even attend the session. I’m advised that the allegation raised by the woman Kavanaugh may have known in high school did not surface in the closed session.
It also was not raised in the voluminous additional questions sent to Kavanaugh after his hearing. He was asked about baseball tickets and even about whether and when he watched a YouTube of Judge Kozinski, for whom he clerked, kissing a woman on “The Dating Game.” But not about his own alleged kiss.
Why not? From the Democrats’ perspective, the lawyer in me would have wanted to pin Kavanaugh down, before he knew exactly what was coming, by asking him while he was under oath whether, for example, he had kissed any girl or woman against her will at any party he attended while in high school. If the question seemed to ridiculous to ask in public, I would have asked it in private session.
But it wasn’t asked. Strange, don’t you think?
UPDATE: We now know the name of the guy who is accused, along with Bret Kavanaugh, of having engaged in sexual misconduct at a party 35 years ago. He’s Mark Judge, a writer of note.
Judge denies the allegation.
By the way, Mark Judge is the grandson of Joe Judge who played first base for the 1924 World Champion Washington Senators. Next to Walter Johnson, Judge was probably the player from that team most respected and beloved in Washington, D.C. down through the years.
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