A scholar at the center-left Brookings Institution called out Democrats who are accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of perjury. The next day, he left Twitter after a backlash ensued.
Benjamin Wittes is a senior fellow at Brookings and the editor-in-chief of the Lawfare blog. After seeing a tweet thread from David Lat, a lawyer and founder of the Above The Law blog, providing some much needed context to the charge that Kavanaugh lied under oath, Wittes made his own thread.
Wittes’ additional points centered around the obvious point that Kavanaugh is not an idiot, and was prepared for such questions from Democrats.
“Even if you hate the guy, take a deep breath and consider: Kavanaugh is a very good lawyer. Very good,” Wittes wrote in a follow-up tweet. “He was being asked about matters he knew were going to come up. He was being asked about prior testimony that took place more than a decade ago. He had time to prepare.”
Wittes said that if Kavanaugh had lied during previous testimony in 2004 and 2006, the statute of limitations would have run out, unless he “doubled down on them in new testimony.” But Kavanaugh did double down, Wittes then pointed out, and at a time “when the entire world is watching on national television.”
Wittes noted that he has known Kavanaugh for about two decades, and some of his emails with the supreme court nominee had been released by the Judiciary Committee. He said there were “a lot of good reasons for liberals to oppose Kavanaugh,” like the fact that he’s a conservative judge that would rule in ways liberals don’t like. But he also said liberals should not oppose him by trying to make him look like a “terrible person,” because he’s actually “decent and honorable.”
He added that “There’s no need to demonize one’s opponents” or to “gin up a ‘perjury’ issue here.”
Naturally, the Left didn’t like this sober analysis, and set about accusing Kavanaugh — and Wittes — of lying. After the ensuing backlash, Wittes announced he was leaving Twitter.
There’s just no room for dissent on the Left.