Ford/Kavanaugh

(Notes and links to a Ford skeptic over at Ian Welsh's blog.)

Yes, I do believe her. Simply on the odds, without anything beyond basic information about the careers and lives of Dr. Ford and Kavanaugh, and their testimony, it is overwhelmingly likely that she told the truth. The law school saying is, “When the facts are with you, pound the facts, when the law is with you, pound the law, when neither are with you, pound the table.” Dr. Ford pounded the facts; Kavanaugh pounded the table.

Beyond that there is other evidence, though the Judiciary Committee Republicans and the Trump administration avoided bringing much of it into testimony. Former sex-crimes prosecutor Allison Leotta, writing in a Time opinion piece, lays out the case:

What’s striking about the Kavanaugh case is that the evidence we saw at the hearing was more significant than what is presented in many criminal trials where a guilty verdict is returned. Dr. Ford’s credible testimony, her statements making this accusation years earlier, and her lack of motive to lie, especially compared to the incentives for her to stay silent, would be legally sufficient to sustain a criminal conviction for attempted rape. And that does not even consider the substantiating evidence provided by Kavanaugh’s friend Mark Judge’s autobiographical novel, Kavanaugh’s own crude yearbook statements and his evasiveness during questioning. If this were a mugging, we might just say “case closed.” But the real shame about Mitchell terming this a “he said she said” case is that here, there are dozens of potential witnesses like Mark Judge who were not called to testify. […] if we are forced to endure the concept of “he said, she said,” we must at the very least look at the other two she’s. – http://time.com/5413814/he-said-she-said-kavanaugh-ford-mitchell/