Glenn Beck is sick and unable to do the show, so Pat and Jeff fill in for him. They discuss Trump's press conference, the Ted Cruz event, and Christine Blasey Ford's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
00:05:30.760So here, on this particular episode, we're supposed to believe that they're walking out of a restaurant together, and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Brett Kavanaugh just grabs one of them and jams them up against the wall.
00:20:08.660Judge Kavanaugh answered nearly 1,300 written questions submitted by senators after the hearing,
00:20:16.620more than all prior Supreme Court nominees.
00:20:20.300Throughout this period, we did not know about the ranking member's secret evidence.
00:20:27.660Then, only at an 11th hour, on the eve of Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation vote,
00:20:33.720did the ranking member refer the allegations to the FBI.
00:20:36.920And then, sadly, the allegations were leaked to the press.
00:20:42.400And that's where Dr. Ford was mistreated.
00:20:47.420This is a shameful way to treat our witness, who insisted on confidentiality.
00:20:54.460And, of course, Judge Kavanaugh, who has had to address these allegations in the midst of a media circus.
00:21:05.200When I received Dr. Ford's letter on September the 13th, my staff and I recognized the seriousness of these allegations
00:21:13.960and immediately began our committee's investigation consistent with the way the committee has handled such allegations in the past.
00:21:23.200Every step of the way, the Democratic side refused to participate in what should have been a bipartisan investigation.
00:21:31.520As far as I know, on all of our judgeships throughout at least the last four years or three years, that's been the way it's been handled.
00:21:39.200After Dr. Ford's identity became public, my staff contacted all the individuals she said attended the 1982 party described in the Washington Post article.
00:21:52.660Judge Kavanaugh immediately submitted to an interview under penalty of felony for any knowingly false statements.
00:21:59.960He denied the allegations categorically.
00:22:03.580Democratic staff was invited to participate and could have asked any questions they wanted to, but they declined.
00:22:10.440Which leads me then to wonder, if they're really concerned with going to the truth, why wouldn't you want to talk to the accused?
00:22:20.860The process and procedure is what the committee always does when we receive allegations of wrongdoing.
00:22:28.540My staff reached out to other individuals allegedly at the party, Mark Judge, Patrick Smith, Leland Kaiser,
00:22:36.700all three submitted statements to the Senate under penalty of felony, denying any knowledge of the events described by Dr. Ford.
00:22:47.000Dr. Ford's lifelong friend, Ms. Kaiser, stated she doesn't know Judge Kavanaugh and doesn't recall ever attending a party with him.
00:22:57.520My staff made repeated requests to interview Dr. Ford during the past 11 days, even volunteering to fly to California to take her testimony.
00:23:07.980But her attorneys refused to present her allegations to Congress.
00:23:13.820I nevertheless honored her request for a public hearing, so Dr. Ford today has the opportunity to prevent her allegations under oath.
00:23:25.160As you can see, the Judiciary Committee was able to conduct thorough investigations into allegations.
00:23:32.980Some of my colleagues, consistent with her stated desires to obstruct Kavanaugh's nomination by any means precisely, by any means necessary, push for FBI investigations into the allegations.
00:23:51.080But I have no authority to force the executive branch agency to conduct an investigation into a matter it considers to be closed.
00:23:59.840Moreover, once the allegations became public, it was easy to identify all the alleged witnesses and conduct our own investigations.
00:24:10.300Contrary to what the FBI does, contrary to what the public has been led to believe, the FBI doesn't perform any credibility assessments or verify the truth of any events in these background investigations.
00:24:24.000I'll quote then Chairman Joe Biden during Justice Thomas' confirmation hearing.
00:24:32.200This is what Senator Biden said, quote,
00:24:34.540The next person who refers to an FBI report as being worth anything obviously doesn't understand anything.
00:24:45.060The FBI explicitly does not, in this or any other case, reach a conclusion, period.
00:24:54.000They say he, he said, she said, they said, period.
00:24:59.620So when people wave an FBI report before you, understand they do not.
00:25:34.920Some of my colleagues have complained about the fact that an expert on this side is investigating sex crimes will be questioning the witness.
00:25:44.600I see no basis for complaint other than just plain politics.
00:25:50.860The testimony we will hear today concerns allegations of sexual assault.
00:26:39.160Well, Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school.
00:26:42.100I have described the events publicly before.
00:26:45.340I summarized them in my letter to ranking member Feinstein.
00:26:49.260And again, in a letter to Chairman Grassley.
00:26:52.380I understand and appreciate the importance of your hearing from me directly about what happened to me and the impact that it has had on my life and on my family.
00:27:03.580I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
00:27:06.360I attended the Holton Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland from 1978 to 1984.
00:27:13.280Holton Arms is an all-girls school that opened in 1901.
00:27:18.320During my time at the school, girls at Holton Arms frequently met and became friendly with boys from all boys schools in the area, including the Landon School, Georgetown Prep, Gonzaga High School, as well as our country clubs and other places where kids and families socialized.
00:27:38.360This is how I met Brett Kavanaugh, the boy who sexually assaulted me.
00:27:43.220During my freshman and sophomore school years, when I was 14 and 15 years old, my group of friends intersected with Brett and his friends for a short period of time.
00:27:55.980I had been friendly with a classmate of Brett's for a short time during my freshman and sophomore year.
00:28:01.660And it was through that connection that I attended a number of parties that Brett also attended.
00:28:08.460We did not know each other well, but I knew him and he knew me.
00:28:13.680In the summer of 1982, like most summers, I spent most every day at the Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Maryland, swimming and practicing diving.
00:28:24.740One evening that summer, after a day of diving at the club, I attended a small gathering at a house in the Bethesda area.
00:28:35.440There were four boys I remember specifically being at the house.
00:28:40.380Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge, a boy named PJ, and one other boy whose name I cannot recall.
00:28:49.260I also remember my friend Leland attending.
00:28:52.240I do not remember all of the details of how that gathering came together, but like many that summer, it was almost surely a spur-of-the-moment gathering.
00:29:03.340I truly wish I could be more helpful with more detailed answers to all of the questions that have and will be asked about how I got to the party and where it took place and so forth.
00:29:14.640I don't have all the answers, and I don't remember as much as I would like to.
00:29:18.900But the details about that night that bring me here today are the ones I will never forget.
00:29:26.440They have been seared into my memory and have haunted me episodically as an adult.
00:29:31.340When I got to the small gathering, people were drinking beer in a small living room, family room-type area on the first floor of the house.
00:35:35.820I saw a press report stating that Brett Kavanaugh was on the short list of a list of very well-qualified Supreme Court nominees.
00:35:45.300I thought it was my civic duty to relay the information I had about Mr. Kavanaugh's conduct
00:35:50.700so that those considering his nomination would know about this assault.
00:35:55.040On July 6, I had a sense of urgency to relay the information to the Senate and the President as soon as possible before a nominee was selected.
00:36:06.580I did not know how specifically to do this.
00:36:10.600I called my congressional representative and let her receptionist know that someone on the President's short list had attacked me.
00:36:20.020I also sent a message to the encrypted Washington Post confidential tip line.
00:36:25.040I did not use my name, but I provided the names of Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge.
00:36:31.600I stated that Mr. Kavanaugh had assaulted me in the 1980s in Maryland.
00:36:37.700This was an extremely hard thing for me to do, but I felt that I couldn't not do it.
00:36:44.940Over the next two days, I told a couple of close friends on the beach in Aptos, California, that Mr. Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted me.
00:36:56.040I was very conflicted as to whether to speak out.
00:37:00.460On July 9, I received a return phone call from the Office of Congresswoman Anna Eshoo after Mr. Kavanaugh had become the nominee.
00:37:09.400I met with her staff on July 18th and with her on July 20th, describing the assault and discussing my fears about coming forward.
00:37:20.700Later, we discussed the possibility of sending a letter to Ranking Member Feinstein, who is one of my state's senators, describing what occurred.
00:37:32.700My understanding is that Representative Eshoo's office delivered a copy of my letter to Senator Feinstein's office on July 30th.
00:37:40.700The letter included my name, but also a request that it be kept confidential.
00:37:48.600My hope was that providing the information confidentially would be sufficient to allow the Senate to consider Mr. Kavanaugh's serious misconduct without having to make myself, my family, or anyone's family vulnerable to the personal attacks and invasions of privacy that we have faced since my name became public.
00:38:10.700In a letter dated August 31st, Senator Feinstein wrote that she would not share the letter without my explicit consent, and I appreciated this commitment.
00:38:22.240Sexual assault victims should be able to decide for themselves when and whether their private experience is made public.
00:38:29.480As the hearing date got closer, I struggled with a terrible choice.
00:38:36.680Do I share the facts with the Senate and put myself and my family in the public spotlight?
00:38:42.580Or do I preserve our privacy and allow the Senate to make its decision without knowing the full truth of his past behaviors?
00:38:51.160I agonized daily with this decision throughout August and September of 2018.
00:38:59.900The sense of duty that originally motivated me to reach out confidentially to the Washington Post and to Anna Eshoo's office when there was still a list of extremely qualified candidates and to Senator Feinstein was always there.
00:39:16.780But my fears of the consequences of speaking out started to exponentially increase.
00:39:23.660During August 2018, the press reported that Mr. Kavanaugh's confirmation was virtually certain.
00:39:33.660Persons painted him as a champion of women's rights and empowerment.
00:39:37.760And I believed that if I came forward, my single voice would be drowned out by a chorus of powerful supporters.
00:39:47.200By the time of the confirmation hearings, I had resigned myself to remaining quiet and letting the committee and the Senate make their decision without knowing what Mr. Kavanaugh had done to me.
00:39:58.820Once the press started reporting on the existence of the letter I had sent to Senator Feinstein, I faced mounting pressure.