Torching the republic: Sen. Grassley, hero of sexual predators?

As I write this, Christine Blasey Ford is testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee about Brett Kavanaugh and his attempt to rape her. She is leaving no doubt in her testimony; when asked how certain she was that Kavanaugh assaulted her, she answered, “100 percent.”

This isn’t a credibility contest between Christine Ford and Brett Kavanaugh, it’s a credibility contest between Christine Ford and the GOP-controlled Senate. And the Senate is losing.

Almost lost in the deluge of news over the last 24 hours, there are two particularly damning pieces of evidence against the Senate’s credibility, both from Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley.

War against the FBI

The first was a tweet from Grassley yesterday afternoon:

The purpose of this tweet is obvious. Up until now it’s been unclear what level of investigation is happening, or if one is truly happening at all. Christine Ford herself called for an FBI investigation to be performed more than a week ago. Suddenly, the day before the hearing, Grassley wants to create the impression of an investigation. However, his tweet begs more than one question.

First: With constant calls for an investigation by Ford, another public accuser, and Judiciary Committee Democrats all calling for an investigation to happen before a hearing occurs, why wait until the day before the hearing to assert details about your investigation?

Second: Why is the Senate Judiciary Committee relying on “experienced [federal] agents on detail from ATF+ICE”? Why not the FBI, which is the agency ordinarily tasked with performing background checks for federal positions?

Third: The calls for an investigation have been for an independent investigation. Grassley conspicuously does not claim the investigation is independent in any way; the only way to read it is that Grassley (a GOP partisan) is himself leading this investigation. His tweet describes the ATF and ICE agents as if they are reporting directly to his committee, as in, reporting to him.

It seems obvious to point out that Grassley is not interested in an impartial investigation or even the appearance of one. Grassley gets to control this investigation and the people conducting it. It’s a sham of an investigation he’s suddenly tried to repackage as a legitimate one.

However, I suspect there is something else going on here. Putting aside Grassley’s lack of desire for the truth… If the Senate Judiciary Chairman requested an FBI investigation, that would imply he trusts the FBI to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation. That would be a credibility boost for the FBI from one of the most powerful men in the Senate.

The FBI has been under a credibility attack by Trump since he took office. Firing Comey wasn’t enough, he’s reportedly been raging against Comey’s replacement since then. Defending the integrity of the FBI would also, by extension, boost the reputation of Robert Mueller, formerly FBI Director currently special counsel investigating the President. Emphasizing the historical independence and credibility of the FBI would undercut Trump’s efforts to discredit their former director.

So of course Grassley doesn’t want to engage the FBI. Doing so wouldn’t just establish a truly impartial investigation, it would anger Trump and make it harder to attack Mueller’s credibility. And like many current Republicans, Grassley is too weak to stand up to Trump, even to fulfill their traditional role of defending law enforcement.

Blatant, anonymous disinformation

The other striking bit of news from Grassley came late last night, less than 12 hours before today’s hearing began. Politico reporter Burgess Everett shared parts of a newly released Judiciary Committee investigation summary, which said that the committee interviewed a man claiming that he (not Kavanaugh) assaulted Ford. From the committee’s summary, and supposedly based on interviews conducted by the committee earlier this week:

Committee staff have a second interview with a man who believes he, not Judge Kavanaugh, had the encounter with Dr. Ford in the summer of 1982 that is the basis of her allegation. He described his recollection of their interaction in some detail.

What’s interesting isn’t what’s in the committee report, it’s what isn’t in the report.

Grassley’s committee managed to interview a man who (supposedly) confessed to committing a sex crime, but they don’t identify him? They don’t give his name? They don’t subpoena this man to their hearing, to see if he’ll make the same claims under oath? No mention of referring him to Maryland prosecutors?

This is an uncorroborated, anonymous claim, thrown out by Grassley’s committee at the 11th hour, to undercut Christine Ford’s testimony. They included it in their last-minute dump of information to the press, and they didn’t provide any information that would allow the press to verify it. That seems odd, since letting the press verify it would accomplish Grassley’s key goal (undermining Ford’s claims against Kavanaugh).

There are two options here: Either Grassley is protecting the identity of a man that confessed to attempted rape despite that confession being key to clearing Kavanaugh (against Ford at least), or Grassley knows this is bullshit and is deliberately spreading misinformation to the press.

In the first scenario, Grassley is protecting an anonymous attempted rapist. In the second scenario, Grassley so afraid the accusations against Kavanaugh are credible that he’s manufacturing evidence to undercut them, which means Grassley is protecting someone he suspects of being a rapist and lying about it.

In either case, Grassley is not only protecting a sex crime perpetrator, he’s using the power of the Senate to do it.