I have been speaking with a number of people on the other side. We’ve had conversations ongoing for a while with regard to making sure that we do due diligence here….

– Senator Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican, September 28, 2018

hen Jeff Flake says he’s been talking with people on the other side about doing due diligence regarding the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination, that’s the sound of hypocrisy talking. Flake’s party destroyed due diligence the moment it decided to keep most of the records of Kavanaugh’s government service secret. Think about that. It doesn’t seem the Democrats thought much about it. They made some token complaints before rolling over and saying, in effect, that’s OK, this guy worked for the executive branch on polarizing, partisan issues for years, but we don’t really need to know what he did even though taxpayers were paying him to do it. Seriously, whatever his involvement with Vince Foster’s suicide or the Starr investigation into Monica Lewinsky or shutting down the vote count in the 2000 election or building a bogus case for an illegal war in Iraq or developing justifications for torture and other war crimes, we don’t need to know about any of that. And so we don’t.

A bipartisan conspiracy of silence was treated as a reasonable approach to vetting a chronic liar whose known views would take this country in the opposite direction from where a majority of the people appear to want it to go. With that corrupt two-party bargain in place, the risk of an actual, factual record for the candidate was too great a risk to take. And then Dr. Christine Blasey Ford finally emerged with a credible tale of Kavanaugh and Mark Judge, both drunk and laughing hysterically, trying to rape her in an eerie enactment of a “devil’s triangle” (which Kavanaugh, with presumably unintended irony, would later testify falsely was a “drinking game” – a game for the drinkers, perhaps, but not so much the victim). This was one of the lesser dark areas of Kavanaugh’s case that persuaded Jeff Flake to play both sides of the aisle to no clear purpose (continuing his September 28 statement):

And I think it would be proper to delay the floor vote for up to, but not more than, one week in order to let the FBI continue—to do an investigation, limited in time and scope, to the current allegations that are there, and limited in time to no more than one week….

Acting as if he were proposing something brave, Flake suggested postponing the floor vote, not the committee vote, a gesture that is so antithetical to itself as to be a moral cypher. If there is reason to postpone the floor vote, then there is at least as much reason to postpone the committee. The committee vote by definition pre-judges the floor vote. The committee vote maintains the nomination’s momentum, even as Flake pretends to pause for reflection while the FBI investigates.

But his proposal isn’t a good faith postponement. Flake does not seek a serious, credible FBI investigation that follows the facts wherever they might lead. Acting in patent bad faith, he calls for an investigation of limited time and scope, conditions that increase the likelihood of an inadequate investigation. And Flake calls for an investigation limited “to the current allegations,” which is tantamount to calling for a cover-up of any future allegations, or any further allegations developing out of current allegations. Having called for a process that could appear as fairness without significant risk of actual fairness, Flake concluded his statement:

And I will vote to advance the bill to the floor with that understanding.

Flake’s fellow Republicans professed to be shocked – shocked! – by his resort to subterfuge while moving the Kavanaugh nomination forward. Then they promptly went along with it. As did the president, with a still secret order implementing it. Flake may have imagined himself as the subject of a profile in courage, even though his action accomplished nothing. It was a profile in cowardice cloaked in hypocrisy. Little wonder this plan has been unraveling almost since it was put in place. Actual courage would have led Flake to vote against sending the nomination to the floor of the Senate until all Kavanaugh’s dishonesties, anger issues, and judicial temperament questions had been satisfactorily answered. A relatively simple example, when Kavanaugh says in his opening statement under oath:

Dr. Ford’s allegation is not merely uncorroborated, it is refuted by the very people she says were there, including by a longtime friend of hers. Refuted. 

This is false. None of Dr. Ford’s allegations were refuted by anyone. Dr. Ford’s allegations have not been effectively rebutted by anyone. Kavanaugh has denied them. His supporters have said, in effect, I can’t imagine he’d do such a thing. But there is NO evidence that counters Dr. Ford’s allegations. And Kavanaugh knows that: right before claiming “refutation” Kavanaugh himself acknowledged that “the very people she says were there” have all said they don’t remember anything. Kavanaugh doesn’t mention that the “longtime friend” has said she believes Dr. Ford.

Why does this matter?

Any decent judge should know the difference between “refute” and “rebut,” and should take care not to assert refutation where none exists. If Kavanaugh is deliberately lying here, that should be disqualifying for service on the Supreme Court, or any court. If Kavanaugh is not lying, the dishonesty with which he presents and evaluates evidence should be disqualifying for his holding any judgeship.

Kavanaugh made a point of saying he wrote his own opening statement, with help from no one. He says he showed it to one former law clerk (who apparently had nothing to say about the misuse of “refute”). Kavanaugh insisted that it was all his own work, as was this passage:

This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.

That’s a pretty remarkable charge for a sitting judge to make without offering any supporting evidence. The record suggests it’s not entirely true (at best), since Dr. Ford tried to come forward in July, when Kavanaugh first appeared on the short list of possible nominees. The fact that Dr. Ford’s name was not public until September 17 was not her doing, and nothing in the record supports the notion that these events were “a calculated and orchestrated political hit.” Kavanaugh’s statement here smacks of raw, right-wing partisanship based not on fact but bias.

We do not want any more judges acting on bias rather than facts. We should have the FBI investigate Kavanaugh’s fervent claims. We should begin by believing him. We should provide a public hearing in which he may put forward any factual basis for his claim that he is the victim of an attempted political rape by unnamed attackers.