Thread: Flake's revenge? Trump antagonist holds power over Supreme Court pick

Flake's revenge? Trump antagonist holds power over Supreme Court pick

Trump drove the Arizona senator into retirement with his blistering criticism. Now the fate of the president's high court nominee may be in Flake's hands.

By ELANA SCHOR
09/16/2018 10:19 PM EDT

Jeff Flake once said Donald Trump didn’t deserve to win the presidency. He later wrote the book, literally, on why Trump is destroying the GOP.

Now Flake holds the keys to a Supreme Court confirmation Trump prizes dearly — and could soon yank them away.

Flake flashed a yellow light Sunday night on Brett Kavanaugh’s high court bid, telling POLITICO that he won't support advancing the nomination this week if fellow senators don’t do more to hear out a woman accusing the nominee of sexual assault more than three decades ago. Opposition from the Arizona Republican wouldn’t doom Kavanaugh outright, but it already has ratcheted up political pressure on a GOP struggling to keep Trump’s Supreme Court nominee from a full implosion.

Flake is a charter member of the GOP’s anti-Trump caucus, one of only a few senators in the president’s party who freely tee off on the president’s handling of issues from trade to Russia, though they rarely actively undercut his agenda. Another member of that caucus, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), also called on Sunday night for a delay in the Kavanaugh confirmation process.

But Flake, unlike Corker, sits on the Judiciary Committee. A "no" vote from him on the narrowly divided panel would force Republicans to bring Kavanaugh to the floor with a negative recommendation, or without a committee vote at all, in order to keep the nomination on track.

And also unlike Corker, Flake’s bad blood with the president runs deep: Trump all but ran the Arizonan out of the Senate by making a primary challenge from the right unavoidable, savaging him repeatedly on Twitter over the past two years as "very weak and ineffective" and "Flake(y)."

“I think it’s too soon to tell, but Flake is the one man with the leverage to do this,” GOP strategist and vocal Trump antagonist Rick Wilson said. “With the one-vote margin on the committee, Jeff Flake has the power to stop Kavanaugh, and to humiliate Trump. Revenge is a dish best served cold, as the philosopher once said.”

Flake made no mention of revenge on Sunday night when he spoke out in favor of a more public airing of the previously anonymous allegation against Kavanaugh, which Christine Blasey Ford stepped forward to share on Sunday. But the president's past treatment of Flake, and the senator's subsequent retirement, at the very least makes it easier for the Arizonan to cross Trump by using his Judiciary seat to apply the brakes on Kavanaugh's confirmation.

How far Flake takes the issue, then, is the biggest question as Trump’s high court pick enters a make-or-break week. Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is already working to set up a time for senators to hear from Ford, as well as Kavanaugh one more time.

The 53-year-old appeals court judge has vocally denied Ford’s allegation, and the White House stood by its nominee on Sunday. But even if Flake ultimately backs Kavanaugh, two other Republican opponents would doom the nomination in a Senate divided 51-49. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Maine), neither of whom sit on Judiciary, have yet to indicate how they will vote.

"We need to hear from her," Flake told POLITICO Sunday, referring to Ford. "And I don't think I'm alone in this."

Flake isn’t the GOP anti-Trump caucus’ only member on Judiciary: Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) also has rapped the president repeatedly since Trump took office. But Sasse has said nothing publicly since the sexual assault allegation emerged and his spokesman had no comment on the matter Sunday night.

Before Trump’s election in 2016, Flake also battled conservatives in his own party over the fate of a Supreme Court seat that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) held open until after voters went to the polls. While Texas Sen. Ted Cruz urged fellow Republicans to hold the spot open for even longer if Hillary Clinton won the presidency, Flake said then that if Clinton prevailed “I will be actively trying to round up votes” for taking up Merrick Garland's nomination.

In 2016, Flake used his introduction to Trump — then the presidential nominee-in-waiting of their party — to ding the New Yorker for dismissing the heroism of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a close friend and mentor of Flake. Flake introduced himself to Trump, according to reports at the time, as the senator from Arizona who “didn’t get captured” — a dig at Trump's remark that he liked "people who weren't captured," diminishing McCain's service as a prisoner of war.

After Trump took office, Flake raised some hackles within his party by billing his book, Conscience of a Conservative, as an open rebuttal to the president's politics. Flake also has delivered multiple floor speeches criticizing Trump's bellicose and truth-averse tendencies, warning in January that Trump is "charting a very dangerous path."

Flake had yet to announce his vote on Kavanaugh before the emergence of Ford’s sexual assault allegation, which dates back to when she and the judge were in high school. During his questioning of the nominee during his marathon confirmation hearing, Flake tried to get Kavanaugh to weigh in on Trump’s harsh criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions for allowing the Justice Department to pursue indictments of two GOP House members.

“Should a president be able to use his authority to pressure executive or independent agencies to carry out directives for purely political purposes?” Flake asked Kavanaugh.

The nominee demurred, saying that “I don’t think we want judges commenting on the latest political controversy” lest their independence be questioned.

Flake rephrased the question, to which Kavanaugh said that “I respectfully decline” to address “current events or politics.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...revenge-826067

Republicans just need to proceed to hold the committee vote on Thursday as scheduled, and move on to a vote in the Senate. Do not turn this nomination into another Anita Hill drama weekend. I believe it will come out in time that the therapis'ts "notes" were manufactured. And in order to review the whole matter, her entire body of "notes" would need to be reviewed into order to test the "notes" as part of an actual therapy session at the time. The claim is this was a "repressed memory', nothing about being groped by a drunk high school student at a party would cause a "repressed memory" in a normal person.

Why was she there? There was no "party". Just 4 guys and her. Why was she wearing a one piece bathing suit and clothes? She doesn't know where she was, how she got there. These boys didn't go to her school, they went to another school. How did she know them? How does she even know Brett Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge?

Originally Posted by Judy

Why was she there? There was no "party". Just 4 guys and her. Why was she wearing a one piece bathing suit and clothes? She doesn't know where she was, how she got there. These boys didn't go to her school, they went to another school. How did she know them? How does she even know Brett Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge?

I don't see the relevance behind any of your questions. Why she was there. what she was wearing, how she got there. and where her or anyone else went to school has nothing to do with the allegation.

The woman's political affiliation, political history, and the fact that the accused and the only witness denies anything happened is enough for me because in the end this is just her word against the accused and a supposed witness of which she named.

As far as I can tell, there's nothing here. Your irrelevant questions just add mud to the water and don't help Kavanaugh one way or another (IMO). Just saying ...

Internet researchers claim Kavanaugh buddy Mark Judge has troubling history of posting photos of young girls

Sarah K. Burris
16 Sep 2018 at 17:47 ET

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has been accused of sexual assault while his buddy Mark Judge watched nearby. Judge has since said he doesn’t recall the incident in an interview with the Washington Post. However, Heavy along with internet researchers uncovered Judge has a troubling history of posting photos of young girls.

In one piece he wrote for GotNews, Judge attacked a woman who claimed she was gang-raped for three hours. The piece has since been removed, but not before some were able to take screen captures.

“There is a key part of the Rolling Stone piece that I have questions about… Jackie was a new student when she went to a fraternity party at Phi Kappa Psi. Her date, Drew, gave her spiked punch to drink and then brought he [sic] upstairs. He led her into a darkened room. Jackie ‘began to scream,’ but it was too late,” he wrote, screen captures claim.

The entire twitter account has also been deleted, including tweets in which Judge appears to advocate journalists be men:

Screen captures of a Flickr page identified as Judge’s feature teen women in sexual poses interspersed with photos of what seem to be clothed teens under 18.

The researchers claim the photos can be confirmed because they were crossposted to other social media accounts that featured Judge’s photo and other identifying information.

Before the account was deleted, Judge wrote on Facebook he mat Kavanaugh at “Beach Week” in 1981. The story appeared along with others in conservative publications as well as others, Heavy reported.

All of the accounts (except Flickr) have since been deleted.

Judge authored books God and Man at Georgetown Prep and Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk about his life as a teen alcoholic, Mother Jones reported. Kavanaugh’s accuser said that the three were at a high school party and were all drunk. It is unclear as though he left the party lifestyle, as his Facebook account seemed to be still posting photos of it as recently as 2012. MoJo noted in their headline that Judge isn’t exactly helping Kavanaugh’s case.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/09/int...s-young-girls/