It’s not easy to follow the timeline right now unless you’re acquainted with a logically flawed and increasingly baroque theory of kavanaugh’s testimony promulgated by Ross Douthat. This is my version of hell.
Let’s just do this:
1. NBC published a report that Kavanaugh and his team were reaching out to third parties trying to refute Ramirez’s claim before the NYer published its story. nbcnews.com/politics/supre…
1. NBC published a report that Kavanaugh and his team were reaching out to third parties trying to refute Ramirez’s claim before the NYer published its story. nbcnews.com/politics/supre…
2. NBC pointed out that in Thursday’s hearing Kavanaugh told Orrin Hatch he only heard of Ramirez’s claims in the New Yorker story.
3. Others, myself included, pointed out that Kavanaugh made an even more detailed denial in a transcribed interview, ruling out that he had ever “discussed or heard discussion” of the incident in Ramirez’s story between graduating Yale and publication.
4. Douthat and fellow conservatives, responding to the apparent contradiction, make 2 points: (a) Kavanaugh’s denial is included in the NYer article and (b) Kavanaugh says later in the interview that he heard Ramirez was calling around looking for corroboration
5. There are a few problems with these defenses. (a) is essentially just an irrelevant fact. The inclusion of his denial in the NYer might be used by some javert-like persecutor to show another way Kavanaugh’s testimony was false, but it can’t be jiu-jitsued to show it’s true.
+ (b) has two issues. First, Kavanaugh doesn’t say when he heard this tale about Ramirez calling around, and the most natural reading of his testimony is that he heard in the aftermath of the publication of the New Yorker’s bombshell story.
Second, remember Kavanaugh wasn’t just asked if he heard about the story; he was also asked if he *discussed* it. He said no. NBC says it has evidence Kavanaugh and his friends *discussed* refuting Ramirez’s story. Nothing in his later testimony acknowledged such discussions.
tl;dr NBC’s story still stands up afaik and, Douthat-led diversionary tactics notwithstanding, still raises serious questions about Kavanaugh’s sworn testimony.
