‘Mistaken Identity’ Twitter Posts Create Second Kavanaugh Scandal

On Thursday, Ed Whelan, president of a conservative think tank and longtime friend of Brett Kavanaugh, swooped onto Twitter to defend Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee from an attempted rape allegation against him, an allegation that threatens Kavanaugh’s chances of confirmation to the highest court in the nation. But in his lengthy Twitter thread, Whelan named a third person whom he claimed bore a strong physical resemblance to Kavanaugh, and who Whelan claimed may have committed the attempted rape. But apart from the alleged physical resemblance and the fact that the other man was a high-school classmate of Kavanaugh, Whelan presented no evidence to connect the third person to the attack. By Friday morning, Whelan had deleted his thread, and posted on Twitter with an apology of sorts. “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,” Whelan wrote. The Whelan claims, however, had already created what Vox.com called “a second Kavanaugh scandal.” "This isn’t a case of a fringe conspiracy theory. Whelan is a well-connected guy in Republican legal circles with a long history of working on judicial nominations," wrote Vox.com reporter Zack Beauchamp. “It raises serious questions as to whether anyone in the White House or Congress knew about or helped coordinate the potentially libelous tweetstorm. It’s even possible that Kavanaugh himself was involved." There have been signs that Kavanaugh may have been involved with formulating the “mistaken identity” defense that ended up accusing a presumably innocent person of a sexual assault that Kavanaugh has been accused of committing. According to The Washington Post, “Kavanaugh and his allies have been privately discussing a defense that would not question whether an incident involving Ford happened, but instead would raise doubts that the attacker was Kavanaugh, according to a person familiar with the discussions.” In addition, two days prior to Whelan’s tweetstorm, a top aide to Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, a longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, posted to his own Twitter account saying, “Keep an eye on Ed’s tweets the next few days.” Hatch himself told reporters on September 17 that he believed that Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, was “mixed up” and mistaking Kavanaugh for another man. According to CNBC reporter John Harwood, Kavanaugh “floated [the] mistaken-identity theory to Orrin Hatch two days before Whelan tweeted details.” Blasey Ford flatly denied that she had mistaken Kavanaugh for the other man, telling The Washington Post that she knew them both, and that there was “zero chance” she would have confused the other man for Kavanaugh. Conservative political author Max Boot said in a Washington Post op-ed that Kavanaugh himself must answer for Whelan’s unfounded accusations. “This is McCarthyism redux—and if Kavanaugh is revealed to have any connection to the propagation of this loathsome falsehood, he should be voted down overwhelmingly by the Senate,” Boot wrote. Another conservative author and Naval War College professor, Tom Nichols, also called for Kavanaugh’s nomination to be withdrawn if he had anything to do with Whelan’s tweets. “Kavanaugh can clear this part of the current crapstorm up by saying: ‘I had no part in this thing Whelan did, I do not endorse it, and have never suggested anyone take such a story forward,’” Nichols wrote. “If he can't say that, he should be done.” Steve Schmidt, who ran the 2008 presidential campaign of Republican nominee John McCain, also said that Kavanaugh should be held accountable for Whelan’s accusations, adding that if the Supreme Court nominee knew anything about them in advance, “it utterly and irrevocably disqualifies him as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court. I hope.” But Donald Trump also registered his opinion on Friday, ignoring the Whelan Twitter scandal, and instead attempting to cast doubt on Blasey Ford’s accusations. "I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents,” Trump stated on Twitter. “I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!” But unreported rapes and rape attempts are common. According to the Bureau of Justice statistics, more than 200,000 rapes and sexual assaults go unreported each year. The many reasons why victims would not report a rape or sexual assault, according to a report by Psychology Today, include fear of consequences, shame, and even denial—with the victim persuading herself that the attack “wasn’t a big deal.” Photo via Executive Office of the President of the United States/Wikimedia Commons Public Domain