Seth AbramsonVerified account

1/ See if you can spot the problem: TIMELINE 6/27: Kennedy announces retirement 7/?: Kavanaugh seeks narrative to discredit Ramirez (NBC) 7/7: McConnell warns Trump against nominating Kavanaugh (NYT) 7/9: Trump nominates Kavanaugh 9/23: Ramirez allegations first published (NYer)

2/ *No one* is claiming—not the White House, not Senate Republicans, not Kavanaugh's camp—that Kavanaugh (whether in conjunction with his high school friends or not) *lied to or concealed from the President* potential nominating-ending negative information about Kavanaugh's past.

3/ Hiding potential allegations of a sex crime from your handlers at the White House would be unheard of for a Supreme Court nominee, as the first thing a nominee is told is that the White House can't shepherd a nomination through until it knows everything that *could* come out.

4/ The White House and FBI also investigate, of course—and part of those investigations is finding out from the nominee if they have skeletons from the past. Sex-related "mistakes" are the most common sort of issue for a background check and background questions to inquire into.

5/ What this means is that the chances Kavanaugh and his Yale buddies were discussing a sexual assault allegation from Yale and *not telling anyone at the White House counsel's office* are nearly zero. One even wonders what the chances are that the FBI didn't uncover this issue.

6/ So now we come to QUESTION 1: If Trump and the White House counsel's office found out about Deborah Ramirez in July—as, again, it'd be a scandal if Kavanaugh lied to the FBI, White House counsel and the President—when did McConnell find out? Is this why he tried to warn Trump?

8/ Trump is right about one thing: Kavanaugh's pedigree is great. And Kavanaugh wasn't as conservative as certain others Trump could've picked—though he's *very* conservative. So McConnell knowing some of the baggage Kavanaugh had would explain his extraordinary warning to Trump.

10/ Here's QUESTION 2: If Trump knew of Ramirez before he picked Kavanaugh, doesn't that underscore how sure he was—from speaking with Kavanaugh—that Kavanaugh would block the Russia investigation once on SCOTUS, if possible? That'd be worth covering up a sexual assault to Trump.

11/ Keep in mind that if Trump, McConnell, McGahn, and others in the GOP found out about Ramirez after July 9, 2018 but still in July—which is nearly certain, unless Kavanaugh lied to everyone—it *isn't much better for the GOP*. Why? Because it then explains their *insane* rush.

12/ America wondered why Kavanaugh's nomination was so rushed (e.g., 94% of his career documents were withheld). Why not *withdraw* the nom once Kavanaugh disclosed a sex-crime allegation? Why rush forward, instead, thereby making it inevitable it'd look like a cover-up later on?

13/ This underscores that Trump was *either* so callous about sex crimes or so *confident* of McGahn's ability to cover one up that he didn't care about the allegation. *Or* he was—like we now know, via NBC, Kavanaugh was—*very* worried but he *needed* Kavanaugh's help on Russia.

14/ So either: (1) The GOP knew of a sex-crime allegation and didn't care; (2) They knew of a sex-crime allegation and planned to cover it up; (3) They knew of a sex-crime allegation and weren't sure they could cover it up, but wanted Kavanaugh on SCOTUS badly enough to risk it.

15/ This begs QUESTION 3: Did Kavanaugh—who we now know is a nakedly political GOP operative—make any promises to the White House in July to ensure his nomination and/or the White House's continued support? And what role did the "Trump-Kennedy pact" play?https://twitter.com/sethabramson/status/1016825672277397504?lang=en …

16/ QUESTION 3 leads to *so* many more questions: what did the White House know, and when did it know it? Did it turn up the Ramirez allegation in its vetting of Kavanaugh *when Kennedy put him on his secret list*, which was *many months before* the FBI conducted its own vetting?

18/ Kavanaugh—like any one of us—would've waited as *long as possible* to seek others' assistance with a sex-crime allegation—so that July date might *merely* indicate Kavanaugh sought help once nominated. But he and the White House might have known of the problem *much* earlier.

19/ As indicated in the "Trump-Kennedy Pact" thread—see Tweet #15—the White House had to start vetting Kennedy's list of "acceptable replacements" *way* before July 2018, because Kennedy would only agree to retire and give Trump SCOTUS' swing seat *if* Trump picked from his list.

20/ With that in mind, the chances that Trump, McConnell, and others in the GOP knew of Ramirez on some date in the months *before* July 9, 2018—as opposed to the *only* other option, which is that they learned of it sometime in the final 3 weeks of July—goes up *exponentially*.

21/ I hope you can see that we're getting into some pretty sick stuff here—as all this raises the specter of GOP power-brokers weighing the chance of Kavanaugh helping end the Russia probe against the MeToo movement in the context of a secret, unethical pact with Justice Kennedy.

22/ But I want to pull back from that line of inquiry, as so much of it is murky—there are too many answers we don't or can't know yet. So let's focus on what we *do* know: that tonight's NBC News story confirms that Kavanaugh committed perjury and can't sit on the Supreme Court.

23/ On 60 MINUTES, Sen. Flake said *one perjury* would disqualify Kavanaugh from the Court. On January 23, 1999, Lindsey Graham likewise told the U.S. Senate that *one* perjury not only keeps someone from SCOTUS but *requires impeachment* from the bench:https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1046784197791297536 …

24/ Kavanaugh told Congress he heard of the Ramirez allegation *after September 23*—when according to NBC, we now have *text messages proving* that that was a lie. I *understand* that Republicans have made America think perjury is impossible to charge. Guess what: this one isn't.

25/ Barring a full FBI investigation—which was just greenlit tonight, per NBC and others—there was never going to be an easy way of determining if Kavanaugh lied about "Ralph Club," "Renate Alumnius," "boofing," "FFFFFFFourth of July," "Devil's Triangle," &c. *This is different*.

26/ Tonight NBC tells us investigators have or are about to have *documentary evidence* Kavanaugh lied—and *not* on any ancillary point, but on a sex-crime allegation he was so scared about that he was secretly plotting with Yale friends and possibly the White House to block it.

27/ That last point matters—as perjury requires a "purposeful" mental state. How do you show such a mental state in proving a perjury? Well, *text messages showing the perjurer plotting about how to conceal a fact from Congress and others* will do it...like, 100 times out of 100.

28/ This is why Sen. Grassley's staff came out tonight with the insane statement that Kavanaugh's testimony *wasn't* contradicted by these text messages. That is to say, Grassley *knows* the messages prove a perjury but he and his staff are trying to set a false narrative *fast*.

29/ But let's pull back for a moment to the big picture. Remember how Brett Kavanaugh expressed *shock* (*shock* I say!) at the allegations of sexual assault against him in testifying before Congress? Remember how he gave the impression he was just learning of them? *All an act*.

30/ In the digital age, "big claims" like "Kavanaugh's demeanor before Congress, which Trump and Flake and others said proved he was credible, has now been proven to be an act" tend to be dismissed as unlikely because grandiose. But read the NBC story—this reading is *confirmed*.