Third Time’s a Charm?

Lawyers tell a story about the guy who was arguing an appeal and getting skeptical questions from a judge. “Your Honor, if you don’t like that argument,” he said, “I have two others that are equally persuasive.”

This is where we are now with the Democrats’ attempt to derail Judge Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination. Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer and purportedly a Democratic presidential candidate, has unveiled accuser number three, Julie Swetnick. The Democrats are obviously trying to make up in quantity what their claims lack in quality. Their problem is that Swetnick’s story is the most absurd of the three they have unveiled so far.

Ms. Swetnick says that during the early 1980s she attended quite a few parties in the D.C. area where Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge–a nice touch, trying to discredit the witness who blows Christine Ford’s fantasy out of the water–were present. At these parties, she “became aware” that Kavanaugh and others spiked the punch bowl with drugs, and girls were commonly gang raped. Ms. Swetnick says she continued attending these drunken, depraved parties–her idea of a good time, apparently–but she “avoided the punch.”

Nevertheless, she claims she was eventually gang raped herself, in “approximately 1982.” Not by Kavanaugh or Judge, of course. Sadly, she didn’t think to report these serial gang rapes (including her own) to the police back in “approximately 1982.” Hey, better late than never.

For what it’s worth, Swetnick doesn’t actually accuse Brett Kavanaugh of any wrongful conduct as to herself.

Swetnick graduated from high school in 1980, Kavanaugh in 1983. She had to place her purported gang rape in “approximately 1982” in order to coincide with Kavanaugh’s high school years. If she had placed it when she herself was in high school, Kavanaugh would have been around 14 years old. So she claims to have been a college student attending high school parties.

Swetnick’s story is absurd on its face. I doubt that anyone actually believes it, but that hardly matters: the headlines will scream that three women have accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct during his youth. We see here the fruits of Senate Republicans’ improvident decision to reopen Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing and push back the vote on his nomination. (To be fair, that decision may have been dictated by squishy members of the GOP Senate caucus.) I don’t doubt that the Democrats can scrape up a couple more obviously false stories if they are given a little more time.

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