Justice Brett Kavanaugh is a Leader of the Party of Misogynist Hypocrites

After recently reading The Destructionists by Dana Milbank, I decided to follow up on something Mr. Milbank brought up in his book and that was about Justice Kavanaugh and when he was on the staff of Kenneth Starr as an independent counsel. 

One of the principal witnesses in Judge Kavanaugh’s hearing was Dr. Blasey Ford a psychology professor who opened before the Senate Judiciary Committee about nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulting her when they were in high school in the early 1980s. In reading Judge Kavanaugh’s full transcripts from his testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and his statement of denial regarding Dr. Ford and his Memorandum on Monica Lewinsky tell vastly different stories.  

Regarding Kavanaugh’s own behavior toward Dr. Ford, he chose to deny, deny, deny (right from the playbook of Trump); but in President Clinton’s case, Kavanaugh urged inquisitor Starr to take a tougher, and rather graphic, line regarding Clinton’s behavior. In a Freedom of Information request by Fix the Court, Kavanaugh expressed notable hostility towards Clinton and his alleged sexual behavior with Lewinsky, and recommended that Starr play hardball when he eventually interviewed Clinton. 

Kavanaugh wrote: “I am strongly opposed to giving the President any ‘break’ in the questioning regarding the details of the Lewinsky relationship…”  Kavanaugh urged Starr to ask Clinton these questions about Ms. Lewinsky. Because of the question’s graphic nature (the reader can read the unexpurgated and entire set questions by clicking on the link above)

• If Ms. Lewinsky says that you inserted a cigar into her ******, would she be lying?
• If Ms. Lewinsky says you had phone ***, would she be lying? 
• If Ms. Lewinsky says that on several occasions in the oval Office you used your finger to ****** her, would she be lying?
• If Ms. Lewinsky says you gave and received **** ***, would she be lying?
• If Ms. Lewinsky says you ********* into her mouth, would she be lying? 
• If Ms. Lewinsky says on several occasions, you had her give you **** ***, would she be lying?

Unfortunately, this sort of prurient, self-righteous focus on sex over perjury and other legal issues that were at the heart of the independent counsel’s investigation of Clinton is exactly why the Starr report ultimately came under harsh fire from critics for missing the forest for the trees. Kavanaugh’s central role in the Lewinsky debacle calls into question his political judgment, and his utter hypocrisy, given his past behavior, exemplified by his attempted rape of Dr. Ford.

We know that President Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives. Five weeks later, on February 12, 1999, the Senate voted on whether to remove Clinton from office. The president was acquitted on both articles of impeachment. The prosecution needed a two-thirds majority to convict but failed to achieve even a bare majority. Rejecting the first charge of perjury, 45 Democrats and 10 Republicans voted “not guilty,” and on the charge of obstruction of justice, the Senate was split 50-50. After the trial concluded, President Clinton said he was “profoundly sorry” for the burden his behavior imposed on Congress and the American people. 

For Trump in the Senate vote to impeach it was 57 to 43 to acquit.  All 50 democrats voted to convict along with 7 Republicans. A majority of 67 votes were needed to impeach Trump. 

As for Mr. Starr, he went on to serve as dean of Pepperdine University’s law school in California, and as president of Baylor University, but was demoted and later resigned from Baylor after an investigation found that the university had mishandled accusations of sexual assault against members of the football team. The investigators rebuked the university leadership, saying it had “created a perception that football was above the rules.” 

Mr. Starr also drew criticism for representing the billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein when he was accused of sex crimes against young girls in Florida.  Starr later expressed that he regretted the turn his investigation took. “I deeply regret that I took on the Lewinsky phase of the investigation. But at the same time, as I still see it twenty years later, there was no practical alternative to my doing so,” he wrote in his 2018 memoir Contempt: A Memoir of the Clinton Investigation.

As for Judge Kavanaugh, he wanted to use extremely graphic details concerning Ms. Lewinsky in the Starr probe but with Dr. Blasey Justice Kavanaugh used the Sergeant Schultz defense. “I see nothing, I hear nothing, I know nothing” Unfortunately, only time will tell just how much damage Justice Kavanaugh and the rest of the conservative Supreme Court will do to America.

The culture of misogyny, chauvinism and sexual entitlement over the bodies of women reign supreme in the GOP. That won’t change until the women in that party recognize the toxicity and abuse of women that they are supporting, and take their votes elsewhere, at least until the GOP is purged of these traits, purge predators from their ranks, and begin to treat women with equality and respect.