Live Updates: Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford Preview Testimony on Eve of Senate Hearing

(INSET: Christine Blasey Ford) WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 4: Judge Brett Kavanaugh listens
Drew Angerer/Getty Images; Edit: BNN
Breitbart News

The latest accusations against Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh — brought by Resistance TV lawyer Michael Avenatti, representing a D.C. resident named Julie Swetnick — have caused Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee to push even harder to derail Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

Follow updates from Breitbart News on the latest developments in the Kavanaugh confirmation battle. All times eastern.

Livewire Highlights:

• Christine Blasey Ford releases polygraph report from her legal team. Details differ from other times she has recounted the story, and it is revealed that it was administered in Maryland — even though she recently delayed testifying before the Senate, citing difficulty with flying across the country from her home in California.
• Michael Avenatti has declined to make his client Julie Swetnick available for media contact. The NYTimes says it is thus unable to corrobate her story.
• Judge Kavanaugh has testified under oath to Senate investigators in response to Swetnick’s allegations.
• GOP senators Cotton and Graham declare Swetnick’s allegations “not credible,” echo Kavanaugh’s “Twilight Zone” characterization.
• President Trump disses Avenatti on Twitter… and apparently gets under his skin.
• Jeff Flake trashes Trump for being “uninformed and uncaring” in response to Kavanaugh’s accusers — still says he has an open mind and will hear out both parties.
• Avenatti tells CNN’s Tapper: He doesn’t know if he first heard Swetnick’s story before44  or after Ford came forward
• Trump lambastes Democrats in press conference for holding back allegations after confirmation hearings: ‘They know it’s a big, fat con job’
• NBC runs with “4th accuser” story… an anonymous letter claiming someone’s daughter saw Kavanaugh molest another woman in 1998
• Senate Judiciary Committee releases transcript of testimony from Kavanaugh on new(er) accusations… took place day before Swetnick came forward

11:47 PM — 

https://twitter.com/BazziNYU/status/1045157861150662656

11:44 PM — Beyond parody. WashPost “annotates” Kavanaugh’s yearbook with nuggets such as: “It’s not clear who Timmy is, but it’s important to note here that Timmy is clearly some friend of Kavanaugh’s at whose house parties occur.”

11:06 PM — Perhaps the perfect summation of the left’s thought process today.

11:02 PM — 

10:34 PM — Another anonymous accusation.

10:33 PM —

9:56 PM — Democrats on Senate Judiciary too busy pouting to ask more questions.

9:47 PM — “You’re asking me what donors think? They think he is being railroaded. It is the first time the grassroots and the donors have been aligned in the Trump era.” — The Daily Beast, quoting a “major GOP donor”

9:08 PM — From Senate transcript… Kavanaugh reacts to Avenatti’s “gang rape” accusation:

That is false. I’ve never participated in a gang rape. I’ve never participated in sexual activity with more than one woman present and me. I think — yeah. Just making sure I accurately described that. In other words, I’ve never had a threesome or more than a threesome.

9:00 PM — Left out of the NBC story: the third-hand account says that Kavanaugh’s 1998 victim was dating him.

8:48 PM — From Senate transcript… Kavanaugh “outraged” by the New Yorker story with Deborah Ramirez’s allegations:

The New York Times says as recently as last week, she  was calling around to other classmates saying she wasn’t sure I had done this. And you know, I think — I think we’re — this is an outrage for this kind of thin, uncorroborated, 35-year-old accusation to be leveled in this fashion at this time. I’ve been in the public eye for 24 years, since I started with the independent counsel in the fall of 1994, very public at various points in my life. I’ve been through six background checks. I worked in the White House at the highest levels, senior staff, traveling with the President all over the world, seeing the most highly sensitive secrets of our Nation for years. I went through a difficult confirmation process for the D.C. Circuit that was public with two separate confirmation hearings in 2004 and 2006.

I’ve been a judge for 12 years in a very public way. I’ve been identified repeatedly as a potential Supreme Court nominee. Whether that was accurate or not, I’ve been publicly identified. My decisions have been publicly discussed. I’ve been very much a presence at the Yale College reunions. I’ve been on multiple panels there. So I’ve been active in the class. The class newsletter has talked about me. The people in my class have been at those reunions and those events.

In all that time, not a word. And then 4 days, you know, when just right before a vote for the Supreme Court, after the nomination itself has been pending for months,  and I’ve been through the hearings and 65 Senate meetings and all the written questions, and then — and then, after all these years, with all this time, and all these descriptions with no corroboration and with her best friend saying she never heard about it, you know, I’m — I’m really just, you know, stunned. And outraged.

8:21 PM — It is now Bad, Actually to investigate outlandish accusations against Brett Kavanaugh.

8:18 PM —

8:13 PM — Kavanaugh denied frequent drunkenness in call with Senate investigators:

So two things I was doing the most at Yale College were studying and going to class and working very hard on my academics, doing well enough to get into Yale Law School, which was not obvious when I arrived in September 1983. I worked my ass off. And the second thing was basketball. Throughout the freshman year when I lived there, I was playing basketball every day… Those were intense, really intense afternoons, early evenings of basketball.

8:11 PM — This is apparently the account behind the Rhode Island “boat rape” accusation.

7:58 PM —

7:53 PM — Full transcript of Senate interview with Kavanaugh about allegations in the New Yorker Ramirez story, Avenatti’s yearbook allegations, and other anonymous accusers.

7:52 PM — Good enough for NBC!

7:48 PM — Someone else claims that Kavanaugh and Judge, still in their college years, raped a girl on a boat in Rhode Island, then got beaten up by her friends. The man making this claim calls Trump “the parasite that occupies the White House.”

https://twitter.com/jeneps/status/1045091112287965185

https://twitter.com/pfeifferdc/status/1045096533950156801?s=21

6:51 PM — Avenatti, sounding very stable:

6:49 PM — NBC News reports that the Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating a fourth accusation — that Kavanaugh “physically assaulted a woman he socialized with in the Washington, D.C. area in 1998 while he was inebriated.”

The letter, sent to Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO), is anonymous. The author is not the alleged victim but claims to be the parent of a woman who claims to have witnessed Kavanaugh “[shove] her friend up against the wall very aggressively and sexually.”

6:38 PM — 

6:31 PM — Will journos dare talk to her?

6:28 PM — Avenatti, still salty, challenges Trump to a debate.

6:00 PM —

5:53 PM — 

5:47 PM — President Puppetmaster.

5:46 PM —

5:44 PM — John Kasich, who is not a senator, says: “Without an investigation… I can’t support this nomination if they choose to move forward.”

5:31 PM —

5:28 PM — More statements from Ford’s testimony:

“I couldn’t see who pushed me” into the room. Has previously said Kavanaugh pushed her and that both Kavanaugh and Judge pushed her.

“Until July 2018, I had never named Mr. Kavanaugh as my attacker outside of therapy.”

5:23 PM — Ford’s opening statement for tomorrow’s hearing: “I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t remember as much as I would like to.”

5:22 PM — Trump goes on long discussion of his own sexual assault accusations, attacking the New York Times for printing “phony” stories. “People know that a lot of the news is fake and a lot of the people here are fake.”

5:19 PM — Trump makes sidelong reference to Ford’s delay in testifying: “We could have heard from her last week, we could have heard from her for a long time.”

5:15 PM — Trump says he is open to hearing Kavanaugh’s accusers, pulling his nomination if he believes he is guilty.

5:11 PM — CNN’s Jim Acosta asks Trump to call on a female reporter — questions why he “always sides with the accused instead of the accusers.”

5:07 PM — Trump: FBI would have had “all the time in the world” if Feinstein did not wait to reveal Ford’s letter until after the confirmation hearings.

5:06 PM — Asked to respond to accusers’ allegations, Trump says, “I won’t get into that game… These are all false accusations, to me.”

5:04 PM — Trump says Democrats are “laughing” in private about obstructing Kavanaugh nomination and tarnishing his name: “What they’ve done to this family, what they’ve done to these children… they know it’s a big, fat con job.”

5:03 PM — Trump begins press conference on Kavanaugh accusers:

4:57 PM — Longer video of Tapper’s interview.

4:48 PM — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) says “three credible witnesses” against Kavanaugh have come forward.

4:45 PM —

4:42 PM — Kavanaugh classmates contest claims from Swetnick, Avenatti:

4:37 PM — Avenatti won’t answer if Swetnick is specifically alleging that Kavanaugh raped her.

4:34 PM — Avenatti speaking live to — who else? — CNN’s Jake Tapper.

4:27 PM — Sen. Bill Cassidy: Avenatti “was immediately called by Judiciary staff but would not reveal any information.”

4:15 PM —

4:13 PM —

4:12 PM — 

4:10 PM — CNN PRIMETIME HOST: ‘AVENATTI IS NOT THE ISSUE’

4:07 PM — Avenatti under fire for posting Swetnick’s name and photo, then paying lip service to “her privacy.” He tells the New York Observer he “wanted America to know what my client looks like.”

4:04 PM — 

4:00 PM — Rosie O’Donnell calls Graham a “closeted idiot” in response to his defense of Kavanaugh. (Archived here in anticipation of deletion)

3:58 PM — Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) says Thursday hearing will proceed with no delay: “I feel like I have a definite responsibility to hold a hearing, not only for (Blasey Ford) but for Judge Kavanaugh.”

3:55 PM —

3:50 PM — VP Mike Pence affirms support for Kavanaugh:

3:44 PM — Kavanaugh’s lawyer Beth Wilkinson spars with NBC News’ Katy Tur: “I heard your last session, and you guys were all saying, ‘oh, there’s so much detail.’ There’s no detail in here. There’s no place. There’s one or two years, generally. There’s no other people. There’s no dates, there’s no times. There’s no information here, other than that there are multiple people, supposedly involved for years — not just her, by the way. She actually saw other women being gang raped, and it’s never been reported?”

3:43 PM — 

3:16 PM — Commentators noticing more discrepancies in Blasey Ford’s polygraph notes:

3:15 PM — “None of Ms. Swetnick’s claims could be independently corroborated by The New York Times, and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, declined to make her available for an interview.”

3:12 PM — Of note from the “polygraph report”:

3:09 PM — Lindsey Graham echoes “Twilight Zone” response from Kavanaugh.

3:05 PM — Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) says pushback on the Kavanaugh “smear campaign… frightens me as a woman.”

I believe that there are responsible Republicans who are going to share the view that it is not just a Supreme Court nominee that is on trial right now. It is the United States Senate in the year of the #MeToo movement. We have the obligation to show this country we a take the allegations seriously, and investigate them absolutely, but that they will be listened to and heard. We are on trial here as well.

3:04 PM —

3:01 PM — Intense virtue signaling from Jeff Flake. Says Trump “uninformed and uncaring.” Does not give an indication who he finds credible: “I will have to listen to the testimony before I make up my mind about the testimony.”

3:00 PM — Tom Cotton: Avenatti client’s allegations are “not credible.”

2:58 PM — Worth remembering re: the FBI…

While the president could authorize further investigation by the FBI, Mr. Trump said he trusted the committee to carry out the process. “‘It seems that the FBI really doesn’t do that,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday, noting that the bureau already completed six background checks on Kavanaugh. [emphasis added]

2:55 PM — Murkowski so far has been the Republican senator most publicly sympathetic to Democratic objections, saying that the FBI should investigate Kavanaugh’s accusers to “clear up” questions.

2:51 PM — RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel asks, “Why hire a Michael Avenatti? Why hold this in your back pocket [referring to Dianne Feinstein sitting on Ford’s letter]?”

2:49 PM — Reality check from… a Washington Post blogger?

2:44 PM — Alyssa Milano proves unconvincing.

2:43 PM — 

2:40 PM — Trump, still at the U.N., pays a compliment to Japanese PM Shinzo Abe in his defense of Kavanaugh. “They are bringing people out of the woods. They can do it to anybody. They can do it to anybody except for Prime Minister Abe because he is so pure.”

2:37 PM — Washington Post with the Bezos-Money Analysis:

2:36 PM — New poll says that Kavanaugh’s approval among Republican women has dropped.

2:32 PM — Blasey Ford’s legal team releases their report on a polygraph test administered this August:

2:30 PM — Mark Judge responds to Swetnick/Avenatti claims:

2:29 PM — 

2:25 PM — Trump’s dismissive tweet against Avenatti appears to have gotten under the 2020 hopeful’s skin. He has now responded twice in the past 40 minutes to insist that his legal record is very impressive.

2:22 PM — Merkley’s legal filing is now publicly available. Among several dubious claims, it repeats the argument presented by Democrats during Kavanaugh’s public hearings that the National Archives have not released enough documents from Kavanaugh’s tenure in the Bush (43) White House.

2:20 PM — Kavanaugh has already testified under oath in response to Swetnick’s allegations, according to Time. The testimony took place in a closed-door session with Senate Judiciary investigators.

2:00 PM — Video from Breitbart News shows actress Alyssa Milano protesting at the office of Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS). Hyde-Smith is not a member of the Judiciary Committee.

1:58 PM — Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) is seeking a federal court injunction to halt Kavanaugh’s nomination, Politico reports.

1:55 PM — Kavanaugh and Republican senators unfazed by Swetnick’s allegation that Kavanaugh may have participated in “gang rapes” of other women and that he was “present” at a party where she was raped by multiple men.

1:53 PM — A CNN legal analyst says “it’s hard to believe” that the FBI “missed something as big, potentially, as this” new accusation in six background checks during Kavanaugh’s judicial career.

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