Amy Klobuchar City Hall Fox News: Brett Kavanaugh: "We worked really well"

The Fox News public meeting with Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) on Wednesday evening featured an interesting exchange in which moderator Bret Baier tried to use Klobuchar's support for his former colleague, Al Franken, who resigned following charges of sexual harassment in December 2017. opposition to Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh against her:

BRET BAIER: I want to follow the procedure. When you say that for Al Franken, there should be more due process in this situation, you also say that he deserves a third act of his career. Do you believe that in some ways the # MeToo movement has gone too far?

AMY KLOBUCHAR: I do not think it goes too far, because I think harassment continues in the workplace. One case does not look exactly like the other. Add to that that for anyone who is accused of harassment, you can go to crime, which is a very different situation, rape, et cetera.

You need to set up a process at your workplace to determine, get the facts, managers, people, people have the right to present their cases and you decide how they are treated. That's what I meant by that, and I think it should apply to the Congress and all the workplaces in Wisconsin and our country.

Klobuchar refused in December 2017 to request Franken's resignation – but she also stated during his resignation that he was doing what he had to do, that his sexual harassment on other people was wrong and that his "third act" might not necessarily be political. . His answer to Baier was in this vein.

That's when Baier tried to be hypocritical:

BRET BAIER: What about Brett Kavanaugh? Did he have due process when he was questioned by this committee? Has he had due process, being innocent before being convicted, by the Democrats in this process –

AMY KLOBUCHAR: I only smiled because he had a very good job. He is, like, at the US Supreme Court. Yes, I think he's done it. He had a process, and this process was a hearing before the Senate. And that hearing continued and evidence was revealed, and that was the evidence of Dr. Blasey Ford. She came with her story.

That's a good point. Kavanaugh had a formal process before the Senate Judiciary Committee and, far from being treated as an innocent person before being convicted, he was given one of the nine most senior positions. powerful American justice and has suffered no lasting professional repercussions for its alleged acts.

Fox News

Klobuchar also took the opportunity to defend his interrogation of Kavanaugh, noting that she had asked him whether he had already fainted because she wanted to reconcile her refusal to attack Christine Blasey Ford with Ford's memories. She repeated that Kavanaugh's behavior reminded her of her father, a convalescent alcoholic:

What bothers me is after my colleague said that she was credible, hearing this basic, political, I think, answer. He has the right to tell his story, but fundamentally politicizes the entire justice system by his behavior. I did not agree with that and was very surprised to find that I was just trying to match his story to his story. You know, people can go out of electricity and you do not remember what happened. Instead of just answering that question, he went straight to me and said, you know, basically, you lost consciousness, drink beer and all those things.

I decided that I could go with him there, but I decided, in my head, maybe a net of my father, I told him, I take you the keys, I do not go down here with you.

Baier tried again, only to be arrested:

BRET BAIER: I asked from the point of view of [whether] you think that there is a difference between your perception of the Al Franken affair and that of Brett Kavanaugh …

AMY KLOBUCHAR: No, I do not think so. I had reasons not to vote for Brett Kavanaugh, telling how he had handled consumer affairs, how he had handled antitrust cases and executive power. I said that he was not going to vote for him earlier than before.

Klobuchar is a potentially difficult area to tackle. Many other Democrats, but especially Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), publicly spoke out against Franken for his behavior and called for his resignation. But Klobuchar, as a senator from Minnesotan, held back early and questioned Kavanaugh rigorously about his alleged behavior a year later. She herself also faces several charges of (non-sexual) harassment at the workplace. And as President Donald Trump himself faces many allegations of sexual harassment, the hypocrisy charges will likely be a major tool for the GOP and allied media, like Fox, in the next general election.

Klobuchar resisted this attack. Kavanaugh, she noted, got due process. In his opinion, he also disqualified himself in various ways, unrelated to his conduct with respect to Ford. And his constant view is that you have to evaluate the allegations in their context and hear them fairly.

His response may have paid little attention to Franken's (multiple and serious) accusations and excessive support for the sexist story that he had been accused of false accusations. But it was also an overview of an approach that many candidates are likely to adopt in 2020.