National Review Online
Saturday, September 29, 2018 2:00 AM
Democrats want further delay in the Kavanaugh
confirmation vote, and Friday afternoon Arizona senator Jeff Flake gave it to
them. He insisted that the FBI take another week to re-open the background
investigation into Brett Kavanaugh and the allegations against him. “I just
wanted,” Flake explained, “to get some Democrats to agree and willing to come
out and publicly say, ‘We would accept this’ and we would say that the process
is fair at least, even if they’re not going to vote for it.”
Good luck. There is no chance whatsoever that this
process will satisfy the Democrats, or the press, or anyone else who has
already decided that Judge Kavanaugh must be destroyed. The best argument we
have heard in favor of an FBI investigation is that it will help to neutralize
the attacks against Kavanaugh, and thereby legitimize his lifetime tenure on
the Court. But the Democrats in the Senate showed their cards long, long ago.
Almost the entire caucus came out against him within hours of his nomination,
and continues to oppose him now. Summing up the position neatly, Senator Chris
Murphy wrote Friday that “of course there should be an FBI investigation,”
before adding that “whatever they find doesn’t change the fact that Kavanaugh,
especially after his performance yesterday, is the most dangerous Supreme Court
pick of our lifetime.” Glad to see you’re keeping an open mind, Senator.
Whether Senator Flake had his change of heart because he
was detained briefly in an elevator by activists who harangued him only he will
ever know. Regardless, he should understand that the protester who shouted at
him is firmly in the Murphy school of thought. “I feel relieved that @JeffFlake
seems to have heard my and @AnaMariaArchil2’s voices in the Senate elevator
today,” she wrote on Twitter. “We absolutely need an FBI investigation and for
him and all Senators to vote NO. #StopKavanaugh.”
She is right, of course. This is a delaying tactic. It is
a fishing expedition. It is, in effect, the extension of an assiduous and
cynical campaign of character assassination. What, one wonders, does Senator
Flake think that Democrats are going to do if, as will almost certainly be the
case, the FBI concludes that Dr. Ford’s story still has no corroboration? Does
he expect Kamala Harris and Cory Booker to say, “Well, we are satisfied, and we
are voting for him?” Does he expect Dianne Feinstein to pen a paean to the
majesty of the presumption of innocence?
As Judge Kavanaugh noted during his testimony — and as
Joe Biden explained back in 1991 — calls for the FBI to do the work of the
Senate are invariably a red herring. The FBI does not come to conclusions, and
it does not investigate ancient state-level allegations that do not fall under
the local statute of limitations. Lawyers for Christine Blasey Ford, meanwhile,
have already begun to dissemble, delay, and defer. A week isn’t long enough,
they say. The remit isn’t broad enough, they say. Their client objects, they
say. And so they might, for it will surely be advantageous to shift from
arguing “nobody innocent can fear investigation” to “being under investigation
disqualifies you from elevation to the Supreme Court.”
Senator Flake should have known better than to have
yielded this intermission. Surely, a week from now, the same Democrats he hoped
to appeal to will be arguing for an even longer investigation.
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