Top conservative lawyer insinuates Kavanaugh classmate and 'lookalike' was Christine Ford's alleged attacker
Ed Whelan, the president of a conservative think tank and a former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, has been promising a silver-bullet exoneration of Brett Kavanaugh, the alleged drunken teen sex pest, all week long.
Kavanaugh was all set to sail into the Supreme Court until Dr. Christine Ford, a California psychologist, accused him of trying to rape her at a house party in the early 1980s, when she was 15 and he 17.
Whelan's shot finally came this evening in the form of a tweetstorm that suggests a Kavanaugh classmate and supposed lookalike was the attacker Ford describes.
His theory is reproduced below. It's absolutely batshit. (Whelan has doxxed foolishly in the past and had to apologize accordingly for such "uncharitable conduct".)
[UPDATE 2: Whelan has apologized accordingly: "I made an appalling and inexcusable mistake of judgment in posting the tweet thread in a way that identified Kavanaugh's Georgetown Prep classmate. I take full responsibility for that mistake, and I deeply apologize for it. I realize that does not undo the mistake."]
I made an appalling and inexcusable mistake of judgment in posting the tweet thread in a way that identified Kavanaugh's Georgetown Prep classmate. I take full responsibility for that mistake, and I deeply apologize for it. I realize that does not undo the mistake.
- Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) September 21, 2018
[UPDATE 1: Ford denies Whelan's accusation: "I knew them both, and socialized with" them, Ford said, adding that she had once visited the other classmate in the hospital. "There is zero chance that I would confuse them."]
[Original conspiracy theory follows here, with identifying info redacted]
Dr. Ford may well have been the victim of a severe sexual assault by someone 36 years ago. Her allegations are so vague as to such basic matters as when and where that it is impossible for Judge Kavanaugh to *prove* his innocence
But there are compelling reasons to believe his categorical denial. Let's look at one set of reasons.
According to Ford's letter, the assault occurred "in a suburban Maryland area home at a gathering that included me and four others." Her WaPo account adds that the house was "not far from" the Columbia Country Club.
The "four others" that she and her lawyer have identified are Kavanaugh, Mark Judge, P.J. Smyth, and a female classmate of Ford's. None of the four lived in the vicinity of the Columbia Country Club.
Kavanaugh's home was 3.6 miles away; Smyth's 4.3 miles; Judge's 10 miles; and the female classmate's 7 miles.
Here is a map of the homes in relation to Columbia Country Club.
Here is a house that is barely a half-mile from the Columbia Country Club. Street address: 3714 Thornapple Street, Chevy Chase.
Here is the house's floor plan: main floor and upstairs. [Zillow Link]
The floor plan corresponds closely to Ford's description of the house where the gathering took place. Here's the "short stair well" (part of a U-shaped staircase with landing) running up from the foyer next to the living room.
Right at the top of the stairs is a door leading to a bedroom. This matches Ford's account of the location of the bedroom she was "pushed" into.
By her account, when she escaped from the bedroom, she "r[a]n across to a hallway bathroom." The floor plan shows that the hallway bathroom is across the hall from the bedroom.
She says the gathering took place in a "small family room." See the family room in the upper left of the floor plan. Someone leaving the house down the stairs and out the front door wouldn't be seen from the family room.
Who lived in this house? [REDACTED], a Georgetown Prep classmate, friend, and football teammate of Brett Kavanaugh's.
[REDACTED] was good friends with Mark Judge. Their friendship appears to have continued long after graduation, as this 2012 Facebook exchange shows.
Folks who knew both Kavanaugh and [REDACTED] in high school have commented on how much they resembled each other in appearance. Here are Kavanaugh and [REDACTED] in their senior yearbook photos.
And here are Kavanaugh and [REDACTED] now.
[Note: I've redacted the guy's present face, since it is immaterial even to Whelan's claimed resemblance in 1982 - Rob]
If you're at a gathering of "four others" in someone's home, you'd ordinarily think that the four others include the host who lives in the home. And that host would be the person least likely to act like a guest and most likely to use private areas of the house.
If the gathering was at [REDACTED]'s house and [REDACTED] was there, then one of the "four others" wasn't there.
Kavanaugh categorically denies being at the gathering and committing the assault. Beyond his countless character witnesses from then and now, Judge and Smyth have informed the Senate Judiciary Committee that they recall no such gathering *at which Kavanaugh was present*.
The female classmate has not been heard from.
Whelan fig-leaves his accusation thus:
To be clear, I have no idea what, if anything, did or did not happen in that bedroom at the top of the stairs, and I therefore do not state, imply or insinuate that [REDACTED] or anyone else committed the sexual assault that Ford alleges
To quote Jules:
Some commentary:
Ed Whelan is engaged in Beach House Defamation, so called because though it is not actually defamation, some lawyer may make a very large amount of money establishing that.
- SupersedingHat (@Popehat) September 20, 2018
Ed Whelan makes upwards of $320,000 from conservative donors. This is what they pay him to do. This is what the conservative movement is. pic.twitter.com/IXAgJaB4rE
- Zach Carter (@zachdcarter) September 20, 2018