There is not a more cynical abuse of the sympathy and trust decent people place in the survivor of sexual violence than a political operative soliciting, stockpiling, then releasing an allegation of sexual misconduct like a sniper’s bullet timed for maximum effect with just the right political wind. To those of Christine Blasey Ford we’ve recently found another set from Deborah Ramirez and then Julie Swetnick in a highly disputed tale in The New Yorker.
Swetnick is being represented by celebrity Resistance lawyer Michael Avenatti. As the poison pens of the mainstream media heartlessly gouge the reputation of a father, a husband, a son, and a basketball coach, one smells the bile produced by the vestigial morals of journalists who have not yet fully washed their souls of true liberal ideals of fairness and due process.
“None of Ms. Swetnick’s claims could be independently corroborated by The New York Times,” The Times wrote as it nevertheless participated in a mass assault on Kavanaugh’s reputation. According to Swetnick, the Supreme Court nominee promoted regular gang rapes of women 36 years ago. Swetnick claims that, at one of these parties, she was a victim of one of these gang rapes. Kavanaugh has already testified, and he should not be hauled back to respond to piecemeal allegations that should have been presented during the regular hearing process.
Lisa Bloom, the woman who arranged for payments to women who agreed to publicly accuse Donald Trump (at just the right moment before the election), was out soliciting even more Kavanaugh accusers on Twitter. While there’s no known connection between these new allegations and the wealthy liberal donors who helped procure the allegations against Trump, we should be reminded that such dark arts are practiced when the stakes are high.
There has not yet been enough time to evaluate the new allegations of Swetnick’s September 25, 2108 declaration. That’s the point of the timing of the release.
Some have attempted to pick apart the illogic in the allegation. That’s a trap. You are supposed to impugn the victim’s story and question whether it was “really” rape. Don’t do it. We can’t know the truth of these allegations because the political operatives who use them like sniper’s bullets held onto them until after the process was over.
NEW White House statement: “In under six hours today, over 60 men women who attended Georgetown Prep or sister schools that knew Brett Kavanaugh well during his time in high school signed a letter to directly refute the allegations released earlier today by Michael Avenatti.“ pic.twitter.com/axPGIq2YGR
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) September 26, 2018
Who should pay the price for keeping these allegations secret until it was too late for Judge Kavanaugh to defend himself? Should Kavanaugh? He had no control over the information and the timing of release. Why should he bear the cost of the surprise that the timing inflicts?
There’s a legal concept called laches, and it applies in spades. It dates back to the 1300s. “Equity aids the vigilant and not those who sleep on their rights,” the doctrine provides. Even a legitimate claim is barred when the person making the claim purposefully holds onto it until after the accused’s ability to defend himself is impaired.
Victims of sexual assault have legitimate psychological reasons for delaying the reporting of trauma. That’s not what we’re talking about. The Ford allegation, alleged to have taken place 36 years ago, was held by Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office to ambush the judiciary committee after the hearing was over. The new allegations sponsored by Avenati, also from the early 1980s, are being released to inflict maximum disruption upon the confirmation process.
Nobody claims that the trauma of either victim controlled the timing of their public revelations. This is not a courtroom proceeding. But laches is nevertheless a doctrine of equity that clearly demonstrates the unfairness at hand.
Curiously, the legal dictionary cites sexual harassment as the classic case where the doctrine of laches might apply. It’s as true today as it was in 1325 England. Somebody has to pay the price for an accuser withholding the allegations from the regular hearing process. Why should it be the man who did nothing but participate in good faith?
It’s anathema that political profit should inure to the cynical operatives who use these allegations, real or not, as weapons. The hearing was announced in plenty of time for these allegations to be submitted to investigators. That’s what happened in the Anita Hill case that didn’t happen here.
We owe victims the opportunity to tell their story and confront their attackers. The opportunity came and went in the regular process of the Senate committee. Now political operatives scream for the spoils of their shameless tactic, the head of an ambushed man.
It matters not that these tactics bring grief and anguish to the women and girls who love and support Judge Kavanaugh. It matters not that the Left picks and chooses among the victims to promote only the ones that help a desired political outcome while denying the victims of Bill Clinton, Keith Ellison, and so many others the redemptive promise of Me Too.
It’s the fault of Feinstein, Avenatti, and the other nameless operatives who deprived the allegations of the process by waiting until it was over. It is they who abused the allegations by withholding them.
We owe it to the constitutional process and to decency in general to deny success to this partisan abuse of victim complaints. The system afforded a process for these victims to come forward. If these complaints had merit, the blame rests squarely on those who withheld them from the regular hearing process in an undisguised effort to maximize the damage against Kavanaugh’s reputation.
