Kevin Graham wrote:honorentheos wrote:Kavanaugh did not say he knew Ford. He said it was possible they met because they ran in overlapping social circles but he doesn't recall meeting her. That is not corroborating evidence.
It most certainly is corroborating evidence because it directly supports Ford's claim that when she "was 14 and 15 years old, my group of friends intersected with Brett and his friends for a short period of time." Kavanaugh corroborates her almost verbatim. You keep ignoring what the evidence actually corroborates and then focus on what it doesn't corroborate as if that changes the fact that plenty corroboration already exists.
You know what, Kevin? You're right and I need to walk this back a bit. This is certainly corroborative evidence of this aspect of her account. We have reason to believe that Kavanaugh and Ford both went to schools in the same geographical area and time period where they may have interacted socially at some point.
Ford's friend Leland Keyser doesn't just not remember the event. She doesn't remember knowing Kavanaugh.
Which is irrelevant since Ford never said Leland and Kavanaugh were friends. It is entirely plausible that she was there briefly and that she arrived with the unnamed "fourth boy" who wasn't upstairs with Judge and Kavanaugh.
True. But it leaves us with only Ford's testimony to support a few critical aspects of the account. Not least of which, and which I think we ought to have found support for if it were the case - that Ford knew Kavanaugh before the event in question in order to be reasonable in assuming she knew her attacker when the attack occurred. Right now, we have no reason other than her statement to believe she could be 100% certain it was Kavanaugh from knowing him rather than there being the potential that the identification was made after the fact with a margin for error. Unfortunate as it seems, that's where we are.
As you noted, Ford went out with (she was particular in avoiding the term dated) one of Kavanaugh's friends that summer. He was one of the persons interviewed by the FBI and whose testimony should be in the report Democrat Senators would have accessed prior to the confirmation. I don't know the details of his testimony as to my knowledge they haven't been made public but I would expect we'd have heard if his statements corroborated the story to any degree.
His Lawyers released a statement simply stating he has no recollection of anything relating to these allegations. So what? The only interesting thing about CHris Garrett is that we know Brett Kavanaugh was his friend and he omitted the fact that his friend was dating Christine Ford.
We don't have corroborating evidence from him. He's a person who could have corroborates aspects of her story but failed to do so.
So here's a fact: We don't actually know much at all. We suspect a lot, and emotions combined with one's subjective reaction unsurprisingly closely aligned with one's political position are doing the heavy lifting. That's a fact.
We know Kavanaugh and Judge were belligerent drunks. We know Kavanaugh is a compulsive liar. We know Kavanaugh is emotionally unhinged, even as an adult. And we have corroborating testimonies from dozens of other people who were not heard during the FBI's bogus inquiry.
I question that we know those things or that it's objective language to call the FBI's inquiry bogus but ok.
We're stepping away from the question of Kavanaugh sexually assaulting Ford when we move to Ramirez, and even more so with the Swetnick claims. Ramirez is a complicated story where she found it difficult to confirm who it was that was pulling up their pants and laughing.
Oh? Is that what you get from her statement: “
Brett was laughing. I can still see his face, and his hips coming forward, like when you pull up your pants.” She also heard a guy scream "Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis is Debbie's face."
No, I got that from her statement that she didn't know for sure it was Kavanaugh and had to call other people to confirm her impression it was him after the news was pushing her to come forward.
Ramirez provided 20 witnesses who could corroborate her story and they questioned none of them. So when you complain about how little we actually "know" it isn't because there is nothing else to know, it is because Senate Republicans don't want more to be known.
The witnesses questioned were not able to confirm the account. That included the person who came forward and said he had heard it from another person who then denied having any recollection of this event. Could be they lied. But what you said is not accurately reflective of the state of the evidence.
So is Swetnick's claims that there was a culture of rape around the jocks that were Kavanaugh's social circle, and she was assaulted by someone not involved in the question of Kavanaugh's history.
You're not up to speed on what these women have actually said if you keep downplaying everything as hearsay. When Swetnick says, "
I witnessed Brett Kavanaugh consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women during the early 1980s", that isn't hearsay, that's direct evidence that corroborates Ford's story.
"When Swetnick says"... is just that.
There are more corroborating witnesses who have yet to be named, but have provided sworn testimony for the Senate. Here is
one example of a woman who knew both Ford and Swetnick and testified:
"
I witnessed firsthand Brett Kavanaugh, together with others, spike the punch at house parties I attended with Quaaludes and/or grain alcohol. I understood this was being done for the purpose of making girls more likely to engage in sexual acts and less likely to say no."
And when they come forward we'll have that as evidence rather than hearsay.