Brett Kavanaugh Hearing — Part 2

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

4:30 — Kavanaugh is tap dancing badly around Patrick Leahy’s question about whether he’d like Mark Judge to testify. He refuses to say that he’d favor having Judge appear under oath before the committee, instead banging on about how it should have been done weeks ago etc. etc.

4:35 — Kavanaugh refused to answer any of Leahy’s questions. It was just five minutes of filibusters about what a great person he was in high school.

4:45 — Uh oh. Chuck Grassley is doing his angry old man thing again. He’s mad at Dick Durbin for suggesting that Kavanaugh ask the committee to suspend its hearings until the FBI can complete an investigation. But Durbin persists. “Why would you resist [an FBI] investigation?” he asks, over and over. “Do you think it’s the best course of action?” Kavanaugh flatly refuses to answer.

4:50 — Wait. Lindsey Graham is asking questions. I thought Mitchell was asking questions for the Republicans?

4:51 — Graham is going completely batshit crazy. He’s going to get lots of cable news time tonight.

4:52 — Even Kavanaugh didn’t quite seem to know what to make of Graham’s eruption.

4:55 — Whitehouse asks why he was the biggest contributor to the “Beach Week Ralph Club.” Answer: “I’m known for having a weak stomach.”

4:56 — Kavanaugh says “boofing” is slang for farting.

4:57 — Kavanaugh repeats his contention that “FFFFFFFourth of July” was a reference to a friend who always sniffed before he said the word fuck.

4:58 — John Cornyn is joining the Lindsey Graham club. It looks like the Republican line coming out of this hearing is going to be a unanimous assertion that this is the biggest, most loathsome character assassination in the history of the Senate.

5:01 — Where is Rachel Mitchell? Did Republicans decide to just ditch her?

5:05 — Amy Klobuchar is going back to the FBI well. But Kavanaugh is resolutely refusing to say that he thinks a further FBI investigation would be a good idea.

5:10 — Listening to Grassley rant about an FBI investigation, you’d think the FBI has no use whatsoever. I guess we might as well just defund the whole agency.

5:12 — And now for another break.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate