Booray said:
Doc Holliday said:
What do you suspect Kavanaugh lied about?
1. Whether he ever drank to the point of memory loss.
2. Whether he meant his yearbook reference to the Renate women as a sign of admiration vs. a boast that he had slept with her.
3. Whether his references to boofing and the devil's triangle in his his yearbook were to drinking games or to sexual innuendo.
4. Whether the yearbook reference to being part of the Beach Week ralphing club referred to frequent vomiting based on drinking too much or to problems handling spicy food.
5. Whether the drinking age in Maryland was 18 when he was 18.
6. Whether the young women of the Holton Arms school regularly socialized with the young men of Georgetown Prep.
7. Whether he knew he was a legacy student at yale despite claiming he had no connections.
8. Whether he knows that Mark Judge's "Bart O'Kvanaugh" character was actually a slightly fictionalized version of himself in high school.
9. Whether or the extent to which he was involved in the following during his time at the Bush White House: (1) the Pickering/Pryor nominations; (2) the Bush Admin's warrantless wiretapping program; and (3) the Bush Admin's detainee policy.
10. Whether he was aware of Judge Kozinski's harassment of clerks and habit of publishing inappropriate material.
11. Whether he knew he had emails stolen from the Democrats while he was trying to push Bush judicial nominees.
To be clear I don't think he "lied about all of that." It is just that he was either sufficiently evasive or other people have made credible contradictions such that I would like to know more.
As to caring abut Ford, I care in the sense that anyone who intentionally lies and damages others should face consequences. But that concern pales in comparison to protecting the integrity of the Supreme Court. Also, I don't see anyway we can ever know enough about the alleged assault for her claim to serve as a basis for keeping Kavanaugh off the Court. So if her claim is affirmatively disproven fine, good for him. But it won't change my mind about whether Kavanaugh is fit to serve. Answering my 11 categories above would.
All of your points listed above, including #12 in your next post have been addressed by multiple observers over the course of this confirmation period. I have to assume either 1) you already have an answer to what you think about each of those things and thus, nothing would change your mind (i.e. you think he lied and you are just phrasing it now as open-ended questions), or 2) you aren't really that curious enough to answer any of those things yourself.
But,
giving you the benefit of the doubt, since I really know nothing about your true intent other than what comes across on this message board, if I were to give you an answer on each of those items, based solely on facts (what we know, what we don't) and also the law regarding perjury (since you said your are a lawyer), with each of those answers ending in either 1) he didn't lie or 2) there is no possible way to ever conclusively know or prove he lied, and thus the answer must be innocent until proven guilty,
would your position change?
As a token of my good intent, I'll take one of the 12 right now:
"10. Whether he was aware of Judge Kozinski's harassment of clerks and habit of publishing inappropriate material."
Facts re: Kozinski:
- Kavanaugh clerked for Kozinski in 1991, and as is common in the legal profession, you keep in contact with people after you meet them. The judges circle is pretty small and the circuit judges all know each other.
- No lawsuit was brought (civil or criminal) regarding the allegations against Kozinski, but Kozinski "retired" (9th Circuit) after the allegations surfaced.
- The allegations involve up to 16 former 9th circuit clerks.
- (1) Heidi Bond clerked for Kozinski 2006-2007 and says Kozinski pulled her into his office, showed her porn, and asked whether it aroused her. Heidi Bond no longer practices law, but she is now a romance novelist writing under the name Courney Milan.
- (2) Emily Murphy did not clerk for Kozinski (she clerked for Judge Richard Paez), but states that at a reception of various clerks and judges in 2012, "[t]he group had been discussing training regimens, and Murphy said she commented that the gym in the 9th Circuit courthouse was nice because other people were seldom there. Kozinski, according to Murphy and two others present at the time who spoke to The Post, said that if that were the case, she should work out naked." (This account has been pretty well confirmed; other people in the conversation recall it and Murphy recounted the conversation in an email shortly after the incident).
- (3) U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Christine O.C. Miller said Kozinski fondled her in 1986.
- (4) Dahlia Lithwick, who clerked for another judge in the 9th Circuit in the mid-1990s, wrote in Slate about how Kozinski, upon learning she was in a hotel room, had asked her what she was wearing.
- (5) Nancy Rapoport, special counsel to the president of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas wrote in a personal blog post how the judge had invited her to drinks during her clerkship for another 9th Circuit judge and remarked: "What do single girls in San Francisco do for sex?"
- (6) A 33-year-old woman said that when she was a student at the University of Montana Law School in 2016, Kozinski came to speak at an event. She said she encountered Kozinski at a reception afterward, and Kozinski in an apparent attempt to see her name tag, which was partially obscured by her lapel "very deliberately put his finger on the other side of my breast, and moved it, with some pressure" toward the center.
- The other various allegations come from women who did not want to comment on the record or reveal any personally identifying information. Some, but not all of them clerked for Kozinski. The allegations range from an unwanted bear hug and kiss to pinches and squeezed breasts and other inappropriate behavior.
- All of these allegations were first publicized after Bond came forward in 2016.
- "The Post reached out to dozens of Kozinski's former clerks and externs for this report. Many of those who returned messages said that they experienced no harassment of any kind and that their experience which entailed grueling work into the wee hours of the morning every day was a rewarding one. They noted Kozinski's wry sense of humor."
- "All of the women The Post interviewed said they did not file formal complaints at the time."
- Kozinski was known across the legal community as someone with a lewd sense of humor and his opinions, particularly in the last decade became more and more irreverent.
- Kozinski does not deny that he has a crud sense of humor and he was the subject of a judicial investigation in 2008 after "the Los Angeles Times revealed that the judge had maintained an email list that he used to distribute crude jokes, some of them sexually themed, and that he had a publicly accessible website that contained pornographic images."
- There is no evidence that Kavanaugh was either on the email list or ever received a forward (from someone else) of one of those emails, and Kavanaugh has denied ever receiving any of the emails.
- Kozinski does deny that he ever pulled an intern into his office alone to show her porn.
So, now the question is "What did Brett Kavanaugh know about this and when did he know it!"
- The more serious claims of sexual harrassment (requiring clerks to watch pornography privately with him in his office, etc.) all occurred more than a decade after Kavanaugh clerked for Kozinski. (From Politico: "Kavanaugh clerked for Kozinski nearly three decades ago, early in his time on the bench and before Kozinski is accused of having spoken and behaved inappropriately toward women.")
- Kavanaugh did work with Kennedy to hire Kennedy's clerks, which often came from Kozinski's office (just like Kavanaugh, many clerks would work for Kozinski and then Kennedy). So there was opportunity for him to find out from one of those clerks about Kozinski's behavior, but none of those clerks have come forward recounting any conversation with Kavanaugh about Kozinski's behavior (nor do we know of any clerks that accused Kozinski who also went on to clerk for Kennedy).
- None of the 16 women who have accused Kozinski about inappropriate behavior have stated that Kavanaugh knew about Kozinski's conduct.
- From Politico: ""After these allegations were reported in the press last year, I spoke with various former Kozinski clerks including Judge Kavanaugh. None of us, including Judge Kavanaugh, had heard of any of these troubling allegations," said one former Kozinski clerk."
- In July after Kavanaugh was nomiated, and when asked about what he knew of these allegations against Kozinski, "a White House spokesperson for the confirmation effort, Kerri Kupec, said that Judge Kavanaugh "had never heard any allegations of sexual misconduct or sexual harassment" regarding Kozinski until recently."
- Daniel Epps, a Washington Law professor otherwise unconnected with Kavanaugh, said that he has known about the allegations for about a decade so it's impossible for Kavanaugh to not have known until recently. (It's unclear how Epps is in a position to know what Kavanaugh did or didn't know). Various unnamed individuals in various articles attempt to confirm the "everyone knew" argument, but their accounts aren't detailed enough to know how or when, etc.
- On Twitter, another well-known professor, Jonathan Adler, challenged Epps claims regarding whether it was really "well known." https://twitter.com/jadler1969/status/1018174943639502848. ("I'm curious about this. It seems it was compartmentalized: Widely known in some circles, unknown in others. Some former clerks were genuinely surprised" and, after saying that he (Adler) asked around about Kozinski when he considered clerking for him as a 2nd clerkship, "[w]hen he'd come up people would talk about midnight calls and making clerks carry luggage. Even when he got in trouble for his server, I didn't hear suggestion he'd been inappropriate with female clerks." (To be clear, Adler isn't suggesting Kozinski's behavior wasn't well known in some circles, but suggesting that it wasn't well-known in all circles, his being a perfect anecdote as someone who had specifically asked around prior to deciding whether or not to clerk for Kozinski)
- Leslie Fahrenkopf Foley, who was a summer extern in Kozinski's chambers while Kavanaugh served as a law clerk, said "I worked for Alex Kozinski in the summer of 1992, while Brett Kavanaugh was a law clerk. It was a completely professional environment, and I never saw or experienced any harassment, nor did I ever feel uncomfortable," Fahrenkopf said in a statement released through the White House. "Brett Kavanaugh is, moreover, a consummate gentleman, and I cannot imagine he ever knew about or condoned any workplace misconduct by Judge Kozinski or anyone else."
- Additionally, in response to the allegations that "Kavanaugh must have known" 18 of Kavanaugh's female former clerks sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee attesting to "[their] uniformly positive experiences with the judge as a boss on issues of gender and equality in the workplace" and "several female clerks for Kavanaugh advocated for him in interviews with The Daily Signal."
- Susan Engel, a law clerk for Kozinski in 2000 and 2001, later clerked for the now-deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. She worked with Kavanaugh at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis.
"Brett is a devoted father to two daughters, someone who has mentored and supported the careers of many women lawyers, and someone who has always treated women with respect," Engel said in a statement. "At no time during my clerkship, or in the years since, did I see or hear Judge Kozinski sexually harass anyone. "I was shocked by the allegations that surfaced last year. I would be astonished if Brett Kavanaugh had ever heard anything about this," she wrote. - Porter Wilkinson, a clerk for Kavanaugh from 2007 to 2008, said she doesn't believe Kavanaugh knew of any allegations against Kozinski. "Judge Kavanaugh knows firsthand from his mother's personal experience as a trailblazer in the legal world the discrimination that women can face in the workplace," Wilkinson said in a statement. "As a former law clerk to Judge Kavanaugh, I knowas evidenced by the letter signed by his law clerksthat he treats everyone with respect. He does not tolerate sexual harassment in any workplace," she wrote.
- Kavanaugh has many written opinions and statements over the years regarding his thoughts on sexual harrassment and workplace misconduct.
- Kavanaugh denies knowing about any such accusation against Kozinski prior to them becoming public. (He repeated these denials during his hearing)
There are no actual facts placing Kavanaugh in any situation where either 1) sexual harrassment by Kozinski occured, or discussion of such harrassment took place such that he "had to have known." In other words, none of the harrassment occurred during Kavanaugh's association with Kozinski, none of Kavanaugh's own clerks knew anything about Kozinski's behavior, and no one has stepped for and asserted that "I had multiple conversations with Kozinski about Kavanaugh's behavior, so of course he had to know."
The only inference regarding "Kavanaugh" must have known is that some people in the legal community knew and they assumed everyone else knew, and they assumed Kavanaugh knew since had a relationship with Kozinski. But other people in the legal community say they have a relationship with either or both Kavanaugh and Kozinski, and even they didn't know about the harrassment until it became public. So, clearly some people knew and some people didn't. Kavanaugh says he didn't. There is no evidence he actually witnessed any of it (and has a stellar record with the women who worked for him regarding how he treats women, generally).
So, how did he lie? And be clear, because the question was regarding "harassment of clerks and habit of publishing inappropriate material"
-- If he lied about knowing about the specific allegations of harassment, then
were the other women who also claim that they didn't know about the harassment also lying? (These women either also clerked for Kozinski during the time period or worked with Kavanaugh during the time period).
-- No one is claiming they didn't know about the private computer server storage that contained the pornographic images was the subject of the very public 2008 investigation. (The second half of your question)
The obvious conclusion is some people said they knew (and did nothing about it until it became public) and some people clearly didn't know. Kavanaugh says he didn't know, and there is no actual evidence to indicate that he is lying or misleading about his knowledge prior to it all becoming public.