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By George H Butcher III

Table of Contents for Blog Post #7D

Guy P. Benson’s claim that the event where Ford was assaulted couldn’t be the 07/01/82 event on Kavanaugh’s calendar was nonsense

Mr. Benson, your October 1, 2018 article played a critical part in a con job perpetrated on the American people and press by the Republicans. The purpose of the con job was to cover up the fact that Dr. Ford was at the July 1, 1982 house-party, at which she testified that Justice Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her. The broader objective of the con was to support his confirmation by the Republicans despite his guilt of sexually assaulting Dr. Ford.

In your article, you argued that there is evidence showing the July 1, 1982 house-party on Justice Kavanaugh’s calendar is not the event described by Dr. Ford at which she was sexually assaulted. But there is no such evidence, and you made no such showing.

However, you boldly made the false claim that you had presented such evidence. And due to that claim, your article contributed to the outcome that Justice Kavanaugh was confirmed despite being guilty.

Just as in Blog #7C, the point of view of this blog post is a conversation with you, Mr. Benson. The discussion concerns your conduct reflected in the article referenced above.

How did the discussion reach this point?

This is Blog #7D in my series of blog posts about the Kavanaugh confirmation proceedings. Blogs #1 to #7C have already been completed.

Blog #7C described the two types of corroborating evidence for Dr. Ford’s allegation. The first type of corroborating evidence is the proof that she was present at the July 1, 1982 house-party, together with Justice Kavanaugh. It is certain that she was there.

The second type of corroborating evidence is evidence that directly establishes Justice Kavanaugh’s guilt of sexually assaulting Dr. Ford. There are three independent proofs of Justice Kavanaugh’s guilt of the sexual assault. So, he is guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.

This Blog #7D discusses the specific elements of the con job you helped to perpetrate on the American public and press. It also contains an assessment of the arguments you made that the July 1, 1982 house-party is not the event described by Justice Kavanaugh.

Your arguments range from baseless to disingenuous, as explained below. They provide no support for the conclusion that you loudly and falsely proclaimed in your article.

The con job is a two-parter

The con job has two components. The first component is the false claim that there is no corroborating evidence for Dr. Ford’s allegation. The second component is the equally false claim that there are facts which show that the event where Dr. Ford was sexually assaulted is not the July 1, 1982, house-party detailed in Justice Kavanaugh’s calendar.

Both components of the con have no substance and are transparently false. So, I tip my hat to you, Senator Collins, Senator Graham, and the rest of your co-conspirators for improbably convincing the public and the press not to believe what is plainly visible. The Republican’s systematic approach for rejecting sexual-assault allegations, which made that achievement possible, will be described in Blogs #8A and #8B.

Most people were apparently confused by the con job about whether there is corroborating evidence

Most people were not confused about whether Justice Kavanaugh is guilty of sexually assaulting Dr. Ford. They consciously or unconsciously observed either or both of the two types of corroborating evidence for Dr. Ford’s allegation. And they mostly believed what their eyes told them.

But you and your co-conspirators did manage to convince nearly everyone that it is not possible to demonstrate the existence of corroborating evidence for Dr. Ford’s testimony. That feat was accomplished with brass balls unconstrained by principle and through a coordinated effort involving multiple parties. That concerted effort is the product of the systematic approach referenced above.

The evidence that Dr. Ford was at the July 1, 1982 party has been in plain sight all along and was cited by Senator Whitehouse. So, creating the illusion that there is no such evidence is still quite a technical achievement in wizardry. And you were personally a contributor to that technical achievement – disappearing the corroborating evidence – through your article that boldly attacked Senator Whitehouse with no rational justification.

Your article falsely claimed there is no corroborating evidence for Dr. ford’s allegation. At the same time, you were obscuring the existence of such evidence by falsely claiming to have identified facts showing that the July 1, 1982 house-party is not the event described by Dr. Ford. But you didn’t identify any such facts.

The absence of corroborating witness testimony is irrelevant

What is true is that there is no corroborating testimony from the other witnesses who were present on July 1, 1982. There is no such testimony because all eight witnesses apparently claim to have no recollection at all of the house-party, which all but one of them provably attended and at which Dr. Ford was provably present.

They can’t recall whether the house-party happened or not or provide any details about it. Their memories are supposedly totally blank. The witnesses’ claims that they have no recollection are the subjects of Blog #5B and Blog#6.

The people who claim to have no recollection include Justice Kavanaugh and Mr. Judge, even though they were together with Dr. Ford at the July 1 party. And Dr. Ford testified that Mr. Judge was present and participated during the sexual assault. So, neither Justice Kavanaugh nor Mr. Judge could have forgotten either the incident or the event.

However, the absence of corroborating witness testimony is irrelevant because of the objective evidence that corroborates Dr. Ford’s memories of the event where she was sexually assaulted. Since she was provably at the July 1, 1982 party, Justice Kavanaugh’s calendar entry corroborates virtually all of Dr. Ford’s memories of the event where she was assaulted.

Accordingly, the claims of the other witnesses that they have no recollections are irrelevant, both individually and collectively. The lack of memories of the seven male witnesses aren’t just irrelevant. They are provably unreliable or dishonest, in this context, since they all attended the event they claim not to recall.

Your arguments originated with someone else, so why am I criticizing you?

For most of your arguments, you quoted an article by John McCormack of the Washington Examiner entitled, “Was Blasey Ford at a July 1, 1982, Party with Kavanaugh?” But the conclusions in your article are your own, and you exaggerated Mr. McCormack’s arguments beyond reason.

Mr. McCormack’s arguments are ultimately flawed as well. They are premised on the existence of uncertainty as to whether or not Dr. Ford was at the July 1, 1982 house-party. And there is no such uncertainty.

His article doesn’t reflect an understanding of either the statistical or common-sense proofs that Dr. Ford was at the party. At least, he should have understood one or both of the common-sense proofs of Dr. Ford’s presence.

But Mr. McCormack’s conclusions, although wrong or irrelevant, were less objectionable than yours.  Mr. McCormack’s two statements of his conclusions were as follows:

“A Democratic senator draws scrutiny to the July 1 event, but the location doesn’t appear to match Ford’s description and a partygoer doesn’t recall her ever being there.”

“More information could come to light this week about what did or did not happen on July 1, 1982 at Tim Gaudette’s house, but for now there is good reason to be skeptical of the theory being promoted by Senator Whitehouse and others about that party.”

Both conclusions are demonstrably wrong or irrelevant, as explained below. But the wording of each is hedged. By contrast, Mr. Benson, you made a mountain out of much less than a molehill, and you claimed to have prove something that the evidence doesn’t even slightly support.  

So, what is the basis of your disparagement of the conclusion that Dr. Ford was at the July 1, 1982 house-party?

Mr. Benson, the discussion in your article simply ignored the obvious corroborating evidence that Dr. Ford was at the July 1, 1982 house-party and the readily apparent evidence of Justice Kavanaugh’s guilt. You ignored both common-sense proof #1 and common-sense proof #2. And you ignored Justice Kavanaugh’s 2018 admission of guilt through his false testimony.

Instead, you concentrated in the article on advancing arguments that there is other evidence that disproves what the corroborating evidence indisputably establishes. Since it is certain Dr. Ford was at the July 1, 1982 house-party, that’s not possible.

But let’s take a look at where your arguments fall on the spectrum of wrong to absurd.  I’ll address the arguments made by Mr. McCormack that you appropriated, what you did with them, and the conclusion that you drew.

Item one:

Benson:

“[Senator Whitehouse] then launches into the 7/1/82 theory of the case.  Is this a potential smoking gun?  After all, some key names from Ford’s account match up with the people Kavanaugh listed as in attendance at that particular gathering”

McCormack:

“The potential significance of this event is that it is the only party or gathering listed on Kavanaugh’s calendar at which both Mark Judge and P.J. Smyth were listed as present, and Judge and Smyth are two people alleged by Ford to have been in attendance at the gathering where she was allegedly assaulted.”

You both specifically knew about the similarities between the event Dr. Ford described and the July 1, 1982 house-party. Mr. McCormack acknowledged that the July 1, 1982 event is the only item in Justice Kavanaugh’s calendar that fits Dr. Ford’s description. So, he knew that the events are the same unless Dr. Ford fabricated or imagined being sexually assaulted.

But he failed to acknowledge the extent of the fit or the significance thereof – that the two events must be the same. He also materially understated the similarities by not admitting that the two events have three named boys in common – Kavanaugh, Judge, and Smyth.

You, Mr. Benson, simply noted that there are some key names that match up between the two events. But you failed to acknowledge the extent of the fit or the significance thereof.

Assessment: Both of you must have known that you were being dishonest and were ignoring the significance of the similarities between the two events. Even just using common sense, the two events having three specifically named boys in common, which makes it beyond a reasonable doubt that they are the same. Thus, both of you had to know the two events are the same, and that your efforts were directed toward concealing that fact.

Item two:

McCormack:

“The house where this gathering took place (according to Kavanaugh’s calendar) does not appear to match the description offered by Ford in her recollection of events…. Ford recalled that the home where the alleged attack occurred was, according to the Washington Post, ‘not far from the country club’ in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where she had likely spent the day swimming prior to the alleged attack. Tom Kane, one of the Kavanaugh friends who was listed in attendance, told CNN’s New Day on Friday that Tim Gaudette’s house was in Rockville, Maryland, 11 miles away from the country club.  “I saw it published today that someone’s floating the notion that there was something on July 1 at Tim Gaudette’s house,” Kane told CNN. ‘Tim Gaudette lived in Rockville. It’s 11 miles away from Columbia Country Club. And it wasn’t a single-family home. It was a townhouse.’”

Benson:

“Mr. Kane told the Weekly Standard that he has no recollection of Ford ever attending a party at this house, which does not in any way match her description of the home in which she was allegedly assaulted.”

Analysis of McCormack argument

Mr. McCormack’s argument about the location is dishonest. Nothing in Dr. Ford’s multiple descriptions of the event could rationally be characterized as not matching Tim Gaudette’s house. Mr. McCormack’s wording suggests that Dr. Ford said that the house-party occurred in Chevy Chase. That is flatly untrue and appears to be intentional deception.

Dr. Ford described the event as occurring in “Montgomery County, not far from the country club;” in “a suburban Maryland home;” and in “a house in the Bethesda area.” She also described the gathering as having occurred somewhere between her house and the country club, which was a 20-minute drive.  All of Dr. Ford’s descriptions of the location are consistent with the location of the July 1, 1982 event.

The argument about a single-family home versus a townhouse is baseless. Nothing in Dr. Ford’s accounts creates a basis for arguing that she said that the event was in a freestanding single-family home, as compared to a townhouse. It is not a relevant distinction in the context of her account.

Assessment: In summary, this argument made by Mr. McCormack is without any substance, at best, and is disingenuous, more realistically. Moreover, even if there were some gaps in Dr. Ford’s memory of the location, that wouldn’t even begin to be significant relative to the strength of the evidence that the two events are the same. So, Mr. McCormack’s argument is closer to absurd than to merely wrong.

Analysis of Benson argument

Mr. Benson, you appear to be attempting to attribute the comment “which does not in any way match her description” to Mr. Kane, which is likely dishonest. But in either event that comment is absurd for two reasons. First, the comments made by Mr. McCormack are baseless. Second, other details of Dr. Ford’s description of the house clearly match Tim Gaudette’s home. Given how absurd your point was, It’s not surprising that you might have wanted to hide behind someone else, rather than admitting to making the comment yourself.   

Mr. Benson, you are also attempting to rely on Mr. Kane’s having no memory of Ford attending a party at Tim Gaudette’s house. Mr. Kane was at the July 1, 1982 house-party. But he didn’t claim to recall that event. So, his lack of memory of Dr. Ford’s presence would be irrelevant even if there were no definitive evidence that the party described by Dr. Ford is the July 1, 1982 event.

Assessment: Your argument about the events not matching “in any way” is thoroughly absurd and dishonest. The other argument about Mr. Kane’s memory is just irrelevant.

Item three:

McCormack:

“During Ford’s testimony Thursday, she explained that Garrett (whose nickname was “Squi” and who also is listed on Kavanaugh’s calendar as attending the July 1 party at Tim Gaudette’s townhouse) was the only social connection to Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge she can recall. Ford said during testimony that she had socialized with Garrett for “maybe a couple months” before the alleged party occurred and that Garrett was someone she “went out with for a few months.” She added: “After that we were distant friends and ran into each other periodically at Columbia Country Club, but I didn’t see him often.” If one of the people at the same small gathering was someone she “went out with for a few months,” wouldn’t there be a good chance she would recall his presence?”

Benson: 

“Another piece that disproves this would-be puzzle is the list attendees recorded on the calendar, which (a) doesn’t align with Ford’s (inconsistent) memory of who was in attendance, and (b) includes someone she wouldn’t have forgotten:”  

Analysis of McCormack argument

Mr. McCormack’s argument would be weak, tending toward meaningless, even if there were actually no corroboration of Dr. Ford’s recollection. There isn’t any reason to believe that Dr. Ford should have remembered Squi being there because she dated him briefly. He wasn’t visibly part of the sexual assault.

But, given the certainty that she was at the July 1 event, this argument is meaningless. It doesn’t have any weight in contradicting the demonstrable fact that the two events are the same.

Analysis of Benson argument

Mr. Benson, you parroted Mr. McCormack’s meaningless argument in your clause (b). Your clause (a) appears to refer to the fact that Justice Kavanaugh’s calendar entry didn’t include Dr. Ford and Ms. Keyser. That argument would be meaningless if it were uncertain whether the two events are the same. But their omission reflects an admission of guilt by Justice Kavanaugh, given the certainty that the two events are the same, as discussed in Blog #7C.

Assessment: These arguments are at best meaningless, and don’t have any weight in disproving the that the event described by Dr. Ford is the July 1, 1982 house-party.  

Item four:

Benson:

“And there’s also this: “Kavanaugh testified that his calendar indicates that prior to the gathering at Tim Gaudette’s he had been doing a football workout, which was ‘usually 6:00 to 8:00 or so, kind of—until near dark. And then it looks like we went over to Timmy’s.’ We don’t know for sure if Kavanaugh worked out until 8:00 p.m. that evening, but if he did, that fact would be inconsistent with Ford’s description of an assailant who was ‘extremely inebriated’ from drinking beer by the time the alleged assault occurred “early in the evening” at a ‘pre-gathering.'”  Some people have posited that perhaps the alleged assault took place at a later party that night, but as McCormack notes, Ford testified that the fateful gathering she recalls was a ‘pregame’-style event, not a later party, which would have taken place after her curfew.”   

Assessment: Mr. Benson, in this argument, you are attempting to use Justice Kavanaugh’s testimony and pure speculation as a basis for creating an alibi for him. The argument would be meaningless, even if there were no corroboration of Dr. Ford’s testimony and even without taking account of Justice Kavanaugh’s complete lack of credibility. It has no impact at all in contradicting the proof that Dr. Ford was at the July 1, 1982 house-party.

Item five:

Benson

“In short, virtually none of the details match with Ford’s description, meaning that we can conclude with relatively strong certainty that Ford was not assaulted at Timmy’s party on July 1, 1982.  Will Sen. Whitehouse, who saw fit to float this weak theory, stipulate as much, now that it’s blown up?”

Assessment: The statement that “none of the details match with Ford’s description” is absurd. The statement is false, and the arguments that you claim support your conclusion is, range from meaningless to dishonest. Your statement ignores the seven details of the two events that are aligned. So, the conclusion that “there is a relatively strong certainty that Ford was not assaulted at Timmy’s party on July 1, 1982” is absurd.

Your other post-2018 contributions to the Kavanaugh discussion

Mr. Benson, you made several other post-2018 contributions to the Kavanaugh discussion. You have continued to create confusion by propagating disinformation through multiple outlets.

Tweets

  • On July 29, 2020, you tweeted about Senator Collins that she “offered detailed, thoughtful explanations” for her vote in support Justice Kavanaugh.
    • Among many other problems with her speech explaining her support for his confirmation was her making the repeated false claim that there is no corroborating evidence for Dr. Ford’s allegation. That statement had to be knowingly false.
  • On May 1, 2020, you tweeted Jennifer Granholm as follows “You were fanatical on Kavanaugh, based on far less evidence. You … tweeted ‘voting for Kavanaugh… means that the GOP men are saying Dr Blasey Ford is lying. Remember this, voters.’” 
    • In reality, the evidence against Justice Kavanaugh is overwhelming and objective. It represents proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Your ability to make your statement – “based in far less evidence” – was due to the success of the con job in which you participated.

Fox News

  • Mr. Benson, you was cited by Fox News on April 29, 2020, as having stated on the air that the media piled on Kavanaugh allegations with “zero corroborating evidence.”
    • The evidence against Justice Kavanaugh has been obvious all along for anyone to observe with their own eyes. It’s not plausible that you could have missed it.
    • The Republican con has been to convince the American public to question what they can observe with there own eyes.
    • The success fo the con job is mainly due to a systematic approach that the Republicans have developed for rejecting sexual-assault allegations. That system will be described in Blog #9.

Townhall

  • On September 29, 2019, you wrote an article for Townhall entitled “Bring It On: Conservatives Are Ready and Willing to Re-Fight the Kavanaugh War.” That article was in response to reports of a new sexual misconduct allegation that became public in September 2019.
    • The Democrats should take you and the Republicans up on that challenge. The House Judiciary Committee should impeach Justice Kavanaugh based on the compelling evidence of his guilt of sexually assaulting Dr. Ford. I don’t think you’ll be so eager for that fight.
    • In the impeachment process, the Democrats should educate the public and press about the compelling evidence of Justice Kavanaugh’s guilt. They should also expose how the Republicans covered up the evidence of his guilt and gave their middle fingers to the #metoo movement.

What happened to Senator Whitehouse’s excellent and obviously correct theory?

 I recall seeing Senator Whitehouse’s presentation about the July 1, 1982 house party as it occurred on September 28, 2018. His conclusion had been apparent to me during Justice Kavanaugh’s testimony the previous day.

His conclusion was obviously correct. So, I couldn’t understand why it hadn’t been pursued and reported on by major media outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post in its full glory. That would have been as fact-reporting that Dr. Ford was at the July 1 event.

There is still no acceptable answer to the question of why the NYT and WP did not report on the fact that the July 1 house-party is the event described by Dr. Ford. Reporting on that fact should have also led to the news analysis that Justice Kavanaugh is guilty, and to the withdrawal of his nomination.

The Republicans disappeared Senator Whitehouse’s theory with your help

But I can identify the steps that the Republicans took to create a distraction, to prevent that reporting from occurring. Your article was a critical part of that distraction. The other steps are reflected in the Republicans’ systematic approach for rejecting sexual assault allegations, which will be described in Blogs #8A and #8B.

A particularly important part of the Republicans’ systematic approach is the Report by Rachel Mitchell, which dishonestly claims that the evidence against Justice Kavanaugh is insufficient to meet the more-likely-than-not evidence standard. Actually, such evidence is more than enough to meet the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence standard. Ms. Mitchell’s highly objectionable report will be discussed in Blog #9.  

So, the answer to the question, what happened to Senator Whitehouse’s theory, is that the Republicans disappeared it with your help, Mr. Benson. Since that should never have been possible, the fact that the Republicans managed to achieve that outcome requires both analysis, which I hope to provide, and soul-searching by the media and the Democrats.

Looking Forward

Blog #8 will examine the Republicans’ systematic approach for rejecting sexual-assault allegations made against their nominees. That system is the primary reason that the Republicans have been successful in conning the American public and press.

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