New questions are being raised about a GOP-authored Senate report that conclusively cleared now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault allegations brought forward at his confirmation hearings.
According to a report from the Guardian, there are “serious omissions” of facts in the report, with the Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner writing that report, done at the behest of then-Senate Judicary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), contained a major misstatement of facts.
As the Guardian report notes, “It prominently included an unfounded and unverified claim that one of Kavanaugh’s accusers – a fellow Yale graduate named Deborah Ramirez – was ‘likely’ mistaken when she alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a dormitory party because another Yale student was allegedly known for such acts.”
However, as the report points out it was case of mistaken identity instead suggested by a lawyer working in conjunction with Mike Davis, lead counsel for the GOP-led committee.
“The suggestion that Kavanaugh was the victim of mistaken identity was sent to the judiciary committee by a Colorado-based attorney named Joseph C Smith Jr, according to a non-redacted copy of a 2018 email obtained by the Guardian,” the report states before adding, “Smith was also a member of the Federalist Society, which strongly supported Kavanaugh’s supreme court nomination, and appears to have a professional relationship with the Federalist Society’s co-founder, Leonard Leo, whom he thanked in the acknowledgments of his book Under God: George Washington and the Question of Church and State.”
“The allegation that Ramirez was likely mistaken was included in the Senate committee’s final report even though [Jack] Maxey – who was described but not named – was not attending Yale at the time of the alleged incident,” the Guardian is reporting. “In an interview with the Guardian, Maxey confirmed that he was still a senior in high school at the time of the alleged incident, and said he had never been contacted by any of the Republican staffers who were conducting the investigation.”
According to Maxey, “I was not at Yale. I was a senior in high school at the time. I was not in New Haven. These people can say what they want, and there are no consequences, ever.”
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