On Wednesday evening, Mike Davis, chief counsel for nominations for the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), posted a tweet indicating he’s not even pretending to take Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh seriously.
“Unfazed and determined,” Davis wrote. “We will confirm Judge Kavanaugh.”
Mike Davis is @ChuckGrassley’s lead staffer for the SCOTUS nomination.
Here’s what he tweeted last night, proving the GOP machine has no intention of taking the attempted rape of Christine Blasey Ford seriously.
It’s dereliction of duty and he’s just locked his account.👎🏻 pic.twitter.com/KW0AHaNeMa
— Rob Bennett (@rob_bennett) September 20, 2018
Davis locked his Twitter account hours after posting those tweets, which were not well received.
"unfazed" – not really even pretending https://t.co/4f1mZv6PRh
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 20, 2018
On Thursday morning, Davis posted a follow-up tweet from his locked account saying he “was referring to Democrats’ partisan political attacks and their refusal to take part in the committee’s thorough and fair investigation. I deleted the tweet to avoid any further misinterpretation by left wing media as so often happens on Twitter.”
While Davis might want you to believe that the Judiciary Committee’s investigation is “thorough and fair,” Grassley wants to exclude the only alleged eyewitness of Kavanaugh’s assault, Mark Judge, from participating in a public hearing currently scheduled for Monday. Judge, who has provided shifting statements about what he remembers about the party where Ford was allegedly assaulted, has indicated he doesn’t want to testify under oath on behalf of his friend.
Republicans are taking Ford’s accusations even less seriously than they took Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas back in 1991. When Hill’s allegations came to light, the Judiciary Committee and the George H.W. Bush administration agreed it was a good idea for the FBI to conduct an investigation before Thomas’ confirmation vote. It took the FBI three days to do so.
Fact is, the FBI CAN investigate Ford’s allegation, IF so ordered by President Trump, as President Bush ordered the FBI to investigate Anita Hill’s allegation in 1991. In that case, as statement below shows, the WH then reviewed the report & concluded claim was “unfounded”. pic.twitter.com/EwB69qoyRB
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) September 19, 2018
Despite having no compelling reason to rush, this time around, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have balked at calls for an FBI investigation of Ford’s allegation, and President Trump refuses to order one.
During a question-and-answer sessions with reporters on Wednesday, Trump offered incoherent reasoning for why he won’t ask the FBI to investigate, ultimately punting the issue to Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, who have alternated between smearing Ford — who goes by Dr. Blasey professionally — and saying they don’t have enough information to determine whether her allegations are credible.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) dismissed a sexual assault allegation that is corroborated by a therapist’s notes from 2012 as nothing more than “a little hiccup.”
GOP Sen. Dean Heller on a conference call: “We got a little hiccup here with the Kavanaugh nomination, we’ll get through this and we’ll get off to the races.” https://t.co/Sxntoq666t
— andrew kaczynski🧐 (@KFILE) September 20, 2018
Another Republican member of Congress, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), dismissed Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault because it happened when he was 17.
.@DanaRohrabacher’s reaction to the allegations of sexual assault facing #kavanaugh: "High school? Give me a break."
— Cameron Joseph (@cam_joseph) September 20, 2018
Ford, who has been besieged with death threats and targeted harassment since she went public with her story about Kavanaugh allegedly assaulting her at a high school party in the early 1980s, has called for the FBI to investigate her allegation before she testifies before Congress, a request that’s been echoed by Democrats on the committee. But Grassley and his Senate Republican colleagues have indicated they have no intention of rescheduling the hearing currently set for next Monday if she isn’t willing to testify.