When a known liar is accused of attempted rape, should he serve on the Supreme Court?

Kavanaugh categorically denies the allegations. His conservative backers think he probably did it anyway. They just don't care. Or care that he could be lying about it now.

On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that California psychology professor Dr. Christine Blasey Ford had credibly accused Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault and attempted rape when they were both in high school. As reported in the Post, significant circumstantial evidence supports Dr. Blasey Ford, who described the attack to therapists in 2012 and 2013, long before Kavanaugh’s nomination, and who passed a lie detector test in August.

The Senate Judiciary Committee had been scheduled to vote on the nomination today, with a vote in the full Senate planned for next week. At first, Republicans attempted to muscle their way through. When that became untenable, they hastily announced a hearing for this coming Monday, September 24, allowing little time to investigate the allegations beforehand.

Dr. Blasey Ford has called for an FBI investigation and it’s currently unclear whether she will testify before the committee on Monday. She has been receiving death threats, and her family has reportedly moved out of their home. As of this writing, committee Republicans are refusing to subpoena conservative writer and high school friend Mark Judge, an alleged participant in the attack. They are refusing to ask the FBI to re-open their background investigation on Kavanaugh, even though "normal procedure for this would have been to send the FBI out."  (Even John Yoo, architect of the Bush torture memos, notes: "It seems to me you could have [an FBI investigation] done in a day or two... I actually was surprised ... that the committee decided to just have hearings on Monday to hear from both Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford without the benefit of additional information.”) And they are refusing to allow corroborating witnesses to testify, including those who could testify to Dr. Blasey Ford’s character.

Many of Kavanaugh’s boosters have sought to minimize the allegations, tacitly accepting their credibility but arguing that attempted rape shouldn’t be disqualifying for a Supreme Court post if it happened long enough ago.

In contrast, Kavanaugh has “categorically and unequivocally” denied the allegations altogether—a position that may be difficult to maintain under oath as senators question him about the hard partying and underage black-out drinking that both he and Judge have acknowledged in the past.

In a 2015 speech at Catholic University, for instance, Kavanaugh joked: “What happens at Georgetown Prep stays at Georgetown Prep. That's been a good thing for all of us, I think." That line was notably missing from the speech transcript he submitted to the Judiciary Committee earlier.

This also isn’t Kavanaugh’s only association with sexual misconduct and violence against women. Kavanaugh’s longtime mentor on the federal court, Judge Alex Kozinski, was forced to retire early after more than a dozen women described sexual harassment and groping. Kavanaugh clerked for Kozinski in the 1990s, Kozinski’s son clerked for Kavanaugh last year, and the two have remained close. Kozinski’s reputation was widely known—women law students were warned to avoid clerking for him—in part because he ran an email list for law clerks, judges, and attorneys in which he shared incredibly vile sexually explicit material.

Then there is Kavanaugh’s friendship with disgraced senior White House aide Rob Porter, whose violent physical abuse of his ex-wives was known to White House for a year before it became public. Porter got his White House gig on Kavanaugh’s recommendation.

Further affecting Kavanaugh’s credibility is significant evidence that he lied to Congress under oath during his previous confirmation hearings about a host of other issues, including whether he knowingly used stolen documents, was involved in vetting radical judicial nominee Charles Pickering, defended the Bush administration’s illegal use of torture, and more. In sworn testimony, Kavanaugh repeatedly told the Judiciary Committee that he "didn't recall" whether he had ever received any sexually explicit emails from Judge Kozinski. He also misremembered key details about his own opinions and dissents on the court. But he wants us to believe that he remembers his debauched high school, college, and law school days well enough to unequivocally deny that he did anything wrong.

How are senators responding? Three Senate Democrats—Doug Jones (AL), Patrick Leahy (VT), and Richard Blumenthal (CT)—have questioned whether the White House knew about the allegations beforehand. Writing to White House Counsel Don McGahn, they noted the cover-up of Porter’s history of violence towards women and the suspicious timing of a letter signed by 65 of Kavanaugh’s high school acquaintances designed to discredit the allegations. (A number of Kavanaugh’s character witnesses have declined to reaffirm their support on the record after the allegations came to light, but Roy Moore, credibly accused by multiple women of sexual assault, still has his back, writing that "Brett Kavanaugh, like me," was being falsely accused. In contrast, more than a thousand alumnae of Dr. Blausey Ford's high school have signed a letter supporting her: "We believe Dr. Blasey Ford... [Her] experience is all too consistent with stories we heard and lived while attending Holton. Many of us are survivors ourselves.")

On the Republican side, senators are clearly hoping to sweep the allegations under the rug as quickly as possible. Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) referred to the allegation of attempted rape as “a little hiccup” in a conference call with “VIP” supporters, before assuring them “we’ll get through this and we’ll get off to the races.” (If that's not a reason to donate to his opponent, Congresswoman Jacky Rosen, I don't know what is!)

And Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) seemed to echo the White House’s talking points rejecting the need for an FBI investigation and hinting that if Dr. Blasey Ford refuses to testify without one, the Kavanaugh confirmation should move forward.

Kavanaugh is already historically unpopular for a Supreme Court nominee. Not surprisingly, Republicans are eager to install him before the public has a chance to get to know him better because he has the potential to shift the balance of the court for an entire generation.

But at least one anti-abortion conservative wonders if this won't be a Pyrrhic victory over the long-term. If Kavanaugh is confirmed and proves to be the pivotal vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, all three women on the Court will have voted to uphold abortion rights while two of the five men voting to take those rights away will have been credibly accused of grave sexual misconduct.

As Douthat cautions:

Even if it wins its long-desired victory at the high court and more anti-abortion legislation becomes possible, a pro-life cause joined to a party that can’t win female votes and seems to have no time for women will never be able to achieve those legislative goals, or at least never outside a very few, very conservative states. And having that long-awaited victory accomplished by a male judicial appointee confirmed under a cloud of #MeToo suspicion seems like a good way to cement a perception that’s fatal to the pro-life movement’s larger purposes — the perception that you can’t be pro-woman and pro-life.