Mother Jones to the Left: Stop Jonesing About Brett Kavanaugh

Ever since the left had its collective freakout over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court in 2018, there has been a persistent agitation on the left that there is some kind of financial corruption involving Kavanaugh. So it is significant that the high octane lefty magazine Mother Jones came out yesterday with a long feature debunking the left’s fever dreams entitled “Here’s the Truth About Brett Kavanaugh’s Finances.”

The very short version: there’s nothing to the left’s crazy conspiracy theories about Kavanaugh.

Some excerpts from Stephanie Mencimer’s article:

The idea that Brett Kavanaugh has taken bribes to sustain his country club lifestyle is one of the hardiest conspiracy theories on the political left. And like most conspiracy theories, this one suffers from some internal logic problems. Yet lots of otherwise smart people who see conspiracy theories as solely a scourge of the right seem to believe it, in part because, as with so many such myths, the Kavanaugh conspiracy theory originated with a few facts. . . it’s improbable that he’s been bought off by the Koch Brothers: He doesn’t need the Koch brothers. . .

[Kavanaugh’s] answers, however, have not satisfied many on the left, who seem convinced that there is something nefarious afoot. In the past three years, a persistent conspiracy theory—though not QAnon level—has bloomed between the lines of what Kavanaugh has left unsaid about how he bridges the gap between his income and his cushy lifestyle. The basic theory goes something like this: Kavanaugh’s debts and mortgage down payment were paid for by some shadowy rich benefactor, as yet unknown, but possibly the Mercers, or maybe Leonard Leo, the vice president of the Federalist Society. A more elaborate version suggests Kavanaugh’s debts were only paid off after the suspiciously timed retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose son worked at Deutsche Bank for a guy who approved loans to Donald Trump and then killed himself. (What that suicide has to do with Kavanaugh is never made clear.) An even weirder scenario includes a convoluted link to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein by way of Kavanaugh’s former boss, Clinton-era independent counsel Ken Starr; controversial Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz; and former Trump Labor Secretary Alex Acosta. . .

There are good reasons why reporters didn’t delve more into Kavanaugh’s finances, not the least of which was that they were completely eclipsed by the charges leveled against him by Christine Blasey Ford, who alleged that Kavanaugh tried to rape her at a party when they were in high school. But the other reason is that there is no mystery there. Kavanaugh has, however obliquely, answered the questions to which liberals have demanded answers. Just because he hasn’t publicly disclosed—and isn’t required to produce—tax returns or other documentation revealing all the secrets of his wealth doesn’t mean that Kavanaugh has taken bribes. It also doesn’t square with what we know about him or about the way the federal judiciary works.

Of course, the left will probably say that Mother Jones is in on the conspiracy.

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