Going public with Kavanaugh info

Two former Yale classmates say they have made several attempts to share text messages raising questions about whether Kavanaugh tried to squash the New Yorker story that made Ramirez's accusations public — and say the FBI did not respond to their calls and written submissions to its web portal.

The text messages involve one potential eyewitness to the incident and the wife of another potential eyewitness.

The texts are a conversation between Kathy Charlton and a mutual friend of Kavanaugh's who, NBC has confirmed, was identified to the FBI by Ramirez as an eyewitness to the incident. NBC News has received no response to multiple attempts to reach the alleged eyewitness for comment.

The story detailing Ramirez’s accusation was published in The New Yorker on Sept. 23. Charlton told NBC News that, in a phone conversation three days earlier, the former classmate told her Kavanaugh had called him and advised him not to say anything "bad" if the press were to call.

  NBC

He needn't have worried. The FBI didn't call, either.

Then on September 21, according to the texts, that same person sent Charlton a text accusing her of disclosing their conversation to a reporter. “Hellllllooooo. Don’t F****** TELL PEOPLE BRETT GOT IN TOUCH WITH ME!!! I TOLD YOU AT THE TIME THAT WAS IN CONFIDENCE!!!”

[...]

Charlton is not the only former Yale classmate of Kavanaugh's to indicate the nominee and his team were active in reaching out to their social group ahead of publication of The New Yorker story. NBC News has reported that a memo to the FBI, drafted by Kerry Berchem, questioned whether Kavanaugh “and/or” his friends “may have initiated an anticipatory narrative” as early as July to “conceal or discredit” Ramirez.

Both women stressed that they don't know the whole story and are drawing no conclusions but are baffled as to why they were never interviewed by the FBI or Judiciary staff.

[...]

Berchem sent to the FBI some of 51 screen shots of text messages she exchanged with her friend, Karen Yarasavage, the wife of Kevin Genda, another alum Ramirez identified as an eyewitness, to explain why Kavanaugh and his friends should be asked whether they anticipated a story about Ramirez as early as July.

[...]

Thursday night, after Grassley pronounced the investigation complete, Berchem sent her third email to Mike Davis, the chief counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, pleading for him speak with her. Similar to his responses to previous emails, Davis noted that her information was forwarded to the investigative staff. Berchem shared the exchange with NBC News.

Hartmann, the committee press secretary, said "it would be a lie to say committee investigators did not interview Ms. Berchem. Committee investigators spoke at length with Ms. Berchem on Oct. 3. Committee investigators also extensively reviewed information provided by Ms. Berchem."

Berchem told NBC News that she has had one call with a committee staff member to whom she gave a brief overview of her concerns but was not interviewed.

Hartmann also said the committee received correspondence from Charlton. "In her letter, Ms. Charlton asked the committee to review her exchange, which the committee did, and said the committee should feel free to contact her if there were any questions," Hartmann said. "After evaluating the information provided, the committee’s professional investigators did not see a need for a follow-up call."

I'd say it's damned lucky for Kavanaugh that cell phones with cameras weren't around back then.



Also, it makes you wonder what the hell the Republicans would accept as corroborating evidence, since they've come out one after another saying there isn't any.

Oh, Hell, yes

In the days leading up to a public allegation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh exposed himself to a college classmate, the judge and his team were communicating behind the scenes with friends to refute the claim, according to text messages obtained by NBC News.

Kerry Berchem, who was at Yale with both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Deborah Ramirez, has tried to get those messages to the FBI for its newly reopened investigation into the matter but says she has yet to be contacted by the bureau.

The texts between Berchem and Karen Yarasavage, both friends of Kavanaugh, suggest that the nominee was personally talking with former classmates about Ramirez’s story in advance of the New Yorker article that made her allegation public. In one message, Yarasavage said Kavanaugh asked her to go on the record in his defense. Two other messages show communication between Kavanaugh's team and former classmates in advance of the story.

In now-public transcripts from an interview with Republican Judiciary Committee staff on September 25, two days after the Ramirez allegations were reported in the New Yorker, Kavanaugh claimed that it was Ramirez who was “calling around to classmates trying to see if they remembered it,” adding that it “strikes me as, you know, what is going on here? When someone is calling around to try to refresh other people? Is that what’s going on? What’s going on with that? That doesn’t sound — that doesn’t sound — good to me. It doesn’t sound fair. It doesn’t sound proper. It sounds like an orchestrated hit to take me out.”

  NBC

Withdraw your name, Asshole.

In a series of texts before the publication of the New Yorker story, Yarasavage wrote that she had been in contact with “Brett's guy,” and also with “Brett,” who wanted her to go on the record to refute Ramirez.

[...]

Further, the texts show Kavanaugh may need to be questioned about how far back he anticipated that Ramirez would air allegations against him. Berchem says in her memo that Kavanaugh “and/or” his friends “may have initiated an anticipatory narrative” as early as July to “conceal or discredit” Ramirez.

[...]

On Sunday, Berchem emailed FBI agent J.C. McDonough her memo. After getting no response, she resent the summary on Monday morning along with screenshots of certain texts that she thinks raise questions that should be investigated. “I’m sure he’s really busy and expect that he’ll get back to me,” said Berchem.

I expect he will now that it's in print at NBC News.

Berchem, 51, a graduate of Yale and a Connecticut resident, reached out to Sen. Richard Blumenthal's office last week. Blumenthal, a Democrat, sits on the Judiciary Committee.

“We heard from Kerry late on Thursday and submitted her summary to the Judiciary Committee early Friday,” a spokeswoman for Blumenthal said in a statement to NBC News. “After we were made to jump through several hoops that delayed our moving forward, it became clear that the majority Committee staff had not turned this summary over to the FBI and, in fact, had no intention of turning it over to the FBI. With our assistance, Kerry submitted her summary to the FBI herself.”

George Hartmann, a spokesman for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said that “the texts from Ms. Berchem do not appear relevant or contradictory to Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony."

Really? They don't contradict him saying other people were trying to influence potential witnesses when it was him doing that? Fucking Chuck Grassley.

And what about this?

Berchem's texts with Yarasavage shed light on Kavanaugh’s personal contact with friends, including that he obtained a copy of a photograph of a small group of friends from Yale at a 1997 wedding in order to show himself smiling alongside Ramirez 10 years after they graduated. Both were in the wedding party: Kavanaugh was a groomsman and Ramirez a bridesmaid at the wedding.

On Sept, 22nd, Yarasavage texted Berchem that she had shared the photo with “Brett’s team.”

But when Kavanaugh was asked about the wedding during a committee interview on Sept. 25th, he said he was “probably” at a wedding with Ramirez. Asked if he interacted with her at the wedding, Kavanaugh replied, “I am sure I saw her because it wasn’t a huge wedding,” but added that he “doesn’t have a specific recollection.” Lying to Congress is a felony whether testimony is taken under oath or not.

[...]

Kavanaugh told the Senate Judiciary Committee under oath that the first time he heard of Ramirez’s allegation was in the Sept. 23 article in The New Yorker.

Kavanaugh was asked by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, when he first heard of Ramirez’s allegations. Kavanaugh answered: “In the New Yorker story.”

Jesus Christ. What HASN'T he lied about?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already set in motion a vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination on the Senate floor for later this week.

Every Republican who votes to install Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court ought to be voted out of office ASAP, and Grassley and McConnell should be drummed out now.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Man smelling his own stench.