Last updated on November 23rd, 2018 at 08:20 am
Jane Mayer pointed out on MSNBC‘s Morning Joe that the second Kavanaugh accuser didn’t step forward, but rather they called her and Mark Judge’s former girlfriend told her that said he had sex when he was at Georgetown Prep with some of his friends, all with the same drunk woman at the same time.’â€
The second accuser (there are now three) of Trump‘s Supreme Court pick, Brett Kavanaugh, is Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh‘s who told Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow of the New Yorker when pushed that she recalls him pushing his penis at her and non-consensual touching. Ramirez has called for the FBI to investigate.
While much doubt is being cast on Ramirez’s recollection, it’s important to note that she did not come forward, which casts doubt on the accusation that she has a motive other than telling the truth as she knows it.
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She was tracked down by Mayer and Farrow. “No, actually she didn’t step forward. This is the thing — we called her,” Mayer corrected on MSNBC‘s Morning Joe. “We heard her name. This is a story; she did not ask for this.â€
Watch here:
“She felt once asked she had to try to search her memory to really remember and say whether there was something here, but this wasn’t her idea to come forward,†Mayer told the Morning Joe hosts.
“What happened is that 35 years ago, when this incident took place, people talked about it, and people in that Yale class have been talking about it since then.â€
Indeed, Mayer and Farrow found emails among Kavanaugh‘s former classmates dated prior to Blasey Ford coming forward, in which they mention the incident Ramirez spoke about, and say that if the FBI investigates Kavanaugh, his nomination will come to an end.
“There’s a very sober background source, who was not part of the party – was not drunk, heard about it either that night, he thinks, or the next day,†Mayer said. “When I asked him myself: Does he remember this, and is he sure that Kavanaugh was the person he heard about in this. He said to me, ‘I am 100% sure.’â€
The second point made in Mayer’s appearance is that Mark Judge was mentioned again, with Mayer calling him a “pivotal witness.â€
Blasey Ford says Judge was in the room when Kavanaugh tried to rape her, and attorney Michael Avenatti has demanded to know why Judge is not being called to testify when he has detailed knowledge of Kavanaugh’s behavior because he was in the room during exceptionally disturbing episodes the lawyer refers to as gang rape. That is referring to a separate, third allegation after the Ramirez and Ford allegations.
Mayer received a call from Judge’s former girl friend, Elizabeth Rasor, who came forward to say that Judge told her that he sex when he was at Georgetown Prep, with some of his friends, all with the same drunk woman at the same time. She said this on the record, which corroborates what Michael Avenatti says his client has witnesses who can testify to seeing.
Mayer recounted what Rasor told her, “‘I feel a moral obligation to correct the record here. What he’s saying about how there’s no way that this could have happened because they only knew boys, they only roughhoused with boys, there were no girls basically in their lives — Mark Judge told me that he,'” Mayer paused here to note, “I don’t want to say anything too scuzzy on television,” and then continued with some effort, “‘but told me that he had sex when she was at Georgetown Prep with some of his friends, all with the same drunk woman at the same time.’â€
Mayer pointed out that Rasor did say this on the record, and added that Rasor told her, “‘I wouldn’t betray confidences ordinarily, but I felt it was just too important, and I needed to say there’s another picture of Georgetown Prep social life than the one that he painted. And he knows that.’â€
The White House and Republicans are tossing doubt left and right on all of these witnesses against Kavanaugh fires. They claim this is the work of Democrats, but that begs the question if Democrats would make up accusations like this, why didn’t they release the Blasey Ford letter sooner and why didn’t they do this to Neil Gorsuch.
The truth is that with all of this concern over Kavanaugh‘s reputation, there has been no concern about his potential victims and the lives his actions might have ruined.
Yes, Kavanaugh deserves the truth to come out and he shouldn’t be smeared with accusations with no investigation. The same can be said of his accusers, though.
So it’s a wonder why Republicans refused to ask the FBI to reopen Kavanaugh‘s background case, and it’s a wonder why the FBI missed these things in the first place. The time to put these fires out would have been before Republicans were trying to ram him through to a lifetime appointment.
Image: MSNBC, Morning Joe, screengrab
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