The White House is launching a public relations campaign in the hopes of salvaging Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination and ushering in a new era of American conservatism on the high court.
CNN reports that the Trump White House is playing defense after a marathon strategy meeting with Kavanaugh that took place on Monday: Like Senate Republicans who had a letter prepared to defend Kavanaugh, they plan to counter Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation of attempted rape with testimonials from women who knew Kavanaugh back in the day and think he’s just swell.
The plan, anonymous officials told CNN, will rely heavily on women who will attest to Kavanaugh’s good character—including from his teenage years, during which he is alleged to have sexually assaulted Ford. People inside the White House, like so many others, appear to be under the impression that one woman’s allegations against a man—in a grotesque kind of calculus—are null and void if another woman did not have the same experience.
This, of course, is ludicrous, but it won’t stop them from trying: Already, the White House has contacted many of the 65 women who knew Kavanaugh as teens and believed he “treated women with respect.” Now, women who worked with Kavanaugh during the Bush administration are tweeting their support of their former colleague with the hashtag #IStandWithBrett.
From CNN:
“I’ve known Judge Brett Kavanaugh for nearly 20 years,” wrote Sara Fagen, the former Bush White House political director. “I don’t believe he would ever harm any person, let alone assault a woman. These eleventh hour allegations as he was about to be confirmed to the Supreme Court reflect the sad state of American politics today. He’s a good man, a brilliant jurist, and he does not deserve to have his good name ruined because the base of the Democratic party doesn’t want a conservative on the Supreme Court.”
Additionally, one White House official told CNN that there may be a public event held later this week featuring an array of women who will vouch for him. It’s all an appallingly orchestrated effort to deny Ford’s story, and you could have seen it coming from a mile away.