On Friday morning, to the dismay of Republicans defending Judge Brett Kavanaugh from evidence-free allegations of sexual assault, President Trump took to Twitter to finally sound off on the case. And he promptly stepped on two land mines.
First, he made the claim that the accuser was probably lying about the assault because she didn’t file a police report.
This is stupid. She was 15 years old at the time of the alleged events, and many women don’t come forward with assault cases because they are embarrassed or blame themselves. Just because she didn’t file a police report doesn’t mean the attack didn’t happen.
What’s more, this sort of claim is wildly counterproductive, given that Democrats are chomping at the bit to claim that Republicans are callous about charges against women — so callous that they don’t care whether Kavanaugh attempted to rape a girl decades ago or not.
Then it got worse. Trump tweeted:
Again, this is idiotic. The FBI has no jurisdiction to investigate the Blasey Ford allegations in the first place. They investigated the Clarence Thomas allegations (and exonerated him, which people tend to forget) because Thomas was an employee of the federal government on federal property when he allegedly sexually harassed Anita Hill. But the FBI can’t just investigate state crimes in a private home 36 years ago. That’s not their job, and it’s not their purview. But instead of repeating that eminently true claim, Trump is now saying that the FBI should have been involved originally. Which they shouldn’t have. Because even if the events occurred, they would have been a state crime.
President Trump needs to put down the phone and get back to prepping his U.N. Security Council session on Iran next week. That phone could harm Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination more than Democrats can at this point.