Thread by @rgoodlaw

<thread> Did Kavanaugh commit perjury telling the Senate Judiciary Committee and Committee staff that first time he heard of Ramirez allegations was in Sept. 23 New Yorker article?

Here's some evidence for (incriminating) and against (exculpatory) a claim of perjury...1/

Incriminating: This exchange with Sen. Hatch during Senate testimony on Thursday, Sept. 27:

HATCH: "When did you first hear of Ms. Ramirez’s allegations against you?"

KAVANAUGH: "In the last — in the period since then, the New Yorker story." 2/

Incriminating: In Sept. 25, 2018 interview with Senate Judiciary staff, Kavanaugh even more explicitly and more clearly denied knowing about the Ramirez allegation "before the New Yorker article publication on September 23rd." 3/

https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1046906911516446721

Exculpating: Later in same Sept. 25, 2018 interview with Senate Judiciary staff, Kavanaugh said, “I, myself, heard about” Ramirez calling classmates to see if they remembered the incident.

https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1046920452604665856

But as @nycsouthpaw notes ... 4/

But as @nycsouthpaw notes ... It is not clear when Kavanaugh “heard about" Ramirez having called classmates. For example, Kavanaugh could have heard post the New Yorker article and pre the NYT article. 5/

https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1046922798160142336

Exculpating?: Kavanuagh is quoted in The New Yorker article itself responding to the allegations and referring to others' denials.

So he clearly knew of Ramirez allegations before article was published and presumably would not be trying to hide such an obvious, public fact. 6/

Then why the flat denials to SJC when specifically asked if he knew of Ramirez allegations beforehand?

One theory: He fibbed to close off a line of questions that might have gotten into thorny issues now raised by NBC report (his attempt to micromanage classmates' responses).7/7