Another Kavanaugh accuser

Senate Republicans spent the last week pushing Christine Blasey Ford to testify on Monday rather than later in the week, as she had asked for. We now know that they knew a second allegation, from Brett Kavanaugh’s time at Yale, was coming down the pike, so their bickering about the schedule starts to make a lot more sense. Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer have the details.

“We’re going to plow right through it,” Mitch McConnell said recently -- and that was after Republicans learned this second allegation was coming.

In the New Yorker story, a handful of Kavanaugh’s friends provide a statement saying that the new accusation just doesn’t sound like the Brett Kavanaugh they know. “The behavior she describes would be completely out of character for Brett,” they say. That, to me, completely undermines their credibility. Whatever you may think of the behavior, the notion that it would be out of character for him is absurd. The Intercept’s Peter Maass read the memoir by Kavanaugh’s best friend, Mark Judge, and found it’s shot through with tales of booze-filled aggression toward women.

Or ask Kavanaugh’s college roommate -- which the New Yorker did. Here’s what he said:

“Debbie and I became close friends shortly after we both arrived at Yale,” he said. “She stood out as being exceptionally honest and gentle. I cannot imagine her making this up.” He said that he never witnessed Kavanaugh engage in any sexual misconduct, but did recall him being “frequently, incoherently drunk.” He described Ramirez as a vulnerable outsider. “Is it believable that she was alone with a wolfy group of guys who thought it was funny to sexually torment a girl like Debbie? Yeah, definitely. Is it believable that Kavanaugh was one of them? Yes.”

On the heels of the New Yorker story, Michael Avenatti, the attorney for Stormy Daniels, jumped into the fray with some utterly uncorroborated allegations. I would suggest ignoring him until he comes forward with real evidence, which he promises is coming in the next few days.

Meanwhile, there is no statute of limitations for attempted rape in Maryland. Local prosecutors there are in a “wait and see” mode, and say that if a police report is filed, they’ll look into it; the state’s GOP governor rebuffed calls from officials to have the state police investigate. My story on that, with Rachel Cohen, is here.

Donald Trump’s approach to question Blasey Ford’s allegation by citing the fact that that she didn’t report the attack at the time has backfired on him badly, with thousands of people coming forward to tell their own stories, and explain why they didn’t report the assault at the time. Alyssa Milano, who helped kick that off on twitter, wrote about her own today.

Finally, buried at the end of the New Yorker story, was this anecdote, which goes to the question above about what is in or out of character:

After seeing Judge’s denial, Elizabeth Rasor, who met Judge at Catholic University and was in a relationship with him for about three years, said that she felt morally obligated to challenge his account that “ ‘no horseplay’ took place at Georgetown Prep with women.” Rasor stressed that “under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t reveal information that was told in confidence,” but, she said, “I can’t stand by and watch him lie.” In an interview with The New Yorker, she said, “Mark told me a very different story.” Rasor recalled that Judge had told her ashamedly of an incident that involved him and other boys taking turns having sex with a drunk woman. Rasor said that Judge seemed to regard it as fully consensual. She said that Judge did not name others involved in the incident, and she has no knowledge that Kavanaugh participated. But Rasor was disturbed by the story and noted that it undercut Judge’s protestations about the sexual innocence of Georgetown Prep.