News of a letter about an alleged incident involving Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh from decades ago has been all over the media since Thursday, but details over just what the allegations have been both sparse and all over the place. Initial reports made reference to “sexual misconduct,” which rightfully drew serious concern over the man who could be the newest Supreme Court justice. According to details reported in The Guardian, however, it may be far less troublesome for Kavanaugh, and more problematic for Democrats.
The publication reported Thursday afternoon that, according to “[a] source who said they were briefed on the contents of the letter,” the allegation is that when Kavanaugh was 17, he was at a party where he and another male “had locked her in a room against her will, making her feel threatened, but she was able to get out of the room.”
The Guardian noted that this has not been verified, but it has already been reported that the FBI is not investigating the matter. If the version in The Guardian is really the whole story, this could be yet another embarrassing moment for Democrats during Kavanaugh’s confirmation process. This comes after Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) grandstanded during the confirmation hearing, saying he was willing to risk being kicked out of the Senate for releasing confidential Kavanaugh emails about racial profiling that 1) weren’t confidential and 2) didn’t say anything other than that Kavanaugh was opposed to racial profiling.
Before Kavanaugh’s hearing began, Democrats appeared to have somewhat of a moral–or at least political–high ground, because there were thousands of pages of documents related to Kavanaugh’s history that either hadn’t been released or had just been released the night before the hearing began. Since then, however, it’s been one blunder after another for the Blue Team. If this Kavanaugh letter turns out to be another “smoking gun” that’s really firing blanks, the public may view them as cynically trying to do whatever they can to delay the vote on Kavanaugh until after the midterm elections, even if it means tearing down the nominee’s reputation in the process.
Ronn Blitzer is the Senior Legal Editor of Law&Crime and a former New York City prosecutor. Follow him on Twitter @RonnBlitzer.
[Image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
