The NYT updates Kavanaugh's "bomb" to note that the accuser does not remember the alleged assault

The New York Times suddenly brought a major revision to a suspected piece of bomb Late Sunday evening, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, of the Supreme Court, introduced a new allegation of sexual assault – a few hours after virtually all of the presidential candidates in the 2020 presidential election cited the law. original article as the reason for Kavanaugh's dismissal.

the update included the significant detail that several friends of the alleged victim said that she had told them that she did not remember at all the alleged sexual assault in question. The Times also said for the first time that the alleged victim had refused to be questioned and had made no comment about the episode.

The only first-hand statement regarding the alleged attack in the original text came from a lawyer related to Clinton who claimed to have witnessed it.

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article, adapted from a forthcoming book, did not include any elements of the book's narrative regarding the statement of a Yale classmate that Brett Kavanaugh's friends would have put his penis in the hand of a student woman at an evening drunk, "the Times wrote.

The note went on as follows: "The book reports that the student refused to be interviewed and friends say that she does not remember the incident. This information was added to l & # 39; section. "

The newspaper did not immediately respond to an email from Fox News asking for comments.

This explanation did not please the conservative commentators, who threw a flood of criticism on the left newspaper.

"Should I be surprised at this point that the NYT is making such an unforgivable forgetfulness?"

– Mark Hemingway

"Should I be surprised at this point that the NYT is making such an unforgivable forgetfulness?" asked Mark Hemingway of RealClearInvestigation.

Jerry Dunleavy, of the Washington Examiner, wrote: "It's crazy the fact that the item" that is not included "in the original article is the part where friends of the alleged victim stated that she did not remember what had happened. "

"It's important to point out that this correction would almost certainly never happen if the conservative media @MZHemingway and others did not get the copy of the book itself the very day of the publication of the excerpt / article, "said author James Hasson .

Throughout the day Sunday, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Beto O 'RourkeCory Booker and Julian Castro, among others, have stated that Kavanaugh "must be charged," citing this allegation.

The revitalized, longer-term attempt to get Kavanaugh out of the high court came as the Democrats' apparent efforts to dismiss President Trump had largely failed. Trump, for one, suggested Sunday that Kavanaugh should sue for defamation.

According to Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly of The Times, Max Stier, a classmate of Kavanaugh, the non-profit CEO connected to Clinton, saw Mr. Kavanaugh pull down the pants during a drunken drunken evening, where his friends penis in the hand of a student ".

The Times did not mention Stier's work as a Clinton defense lawyer, nor Stier's legal battles with Kavanaugh during the Whitewater investigation, and the simply described as "respected thoughtful leader".

According to the Times, Stier "informed the senators and the FBI of this account" last year at the Kavanaugh Hearings ", but the FBI did not investigate and Mr. Stier refused to discuss publicly ".

However, the Times' article also did not mention ostensibly that Pogrebin and Kelly's book revealed that the student in question had denied knowledge of the alleged episode.

"The book notes, in a low voice, that the woman named by Max Stier as having been alleged to be a victim of Kavanaugh and her friends denies any memory of the alleged event," observed federalist Mollie Hemingway. "Seems, I do not know, significant."

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The book bed: "[Tracy] Harmon, whose last name is now Harmon Joyce, also declined to discuss the incident, although several of her friends said she did not remember it. "

"Omit these facts from the @New York Times History is one of the worst cases of journalistic misconduct I remember, "National Review correspondent John McCormack wrote on Twitter.

McCormack wrote separately: "If Kavanaugh's friends pushed his penis, it's not an allegation of wrongdoing against Kavanaugh's" friends ", not Kavanaugh himself? Surely even a liberal Yalie modern who went to one of these strange non-sexual "bare parties" would acknowledge that the student and Kavanaugh were both alleged victims of this alleged incident, barring an additional allegation that an elderly Kavanaugh of 39 university would have asked his "friends" to "push his penis". "

NEW YORK TIMES JOINS TWEET CALLING A PENIS WITHOUT PROVOKING BY FUNCTIONING 'HARMLESS FUN'.

The Times later noted in the article that it "corroborated history with two officials who had contacted Mr. Stier," but the article apparently only meant that the Times had corroborated the Stier had claimed to the FBI. No first-hand corroboration of the alleged episode has apparently been obtained.

Nevertheless, the Democrats announced a new effort to overthrow Kavanaugh. Hawaiian Democrat Mazie Hirono – who said sadly last year that Kavanaugh did not deserve a fair hearing because he could be pro-life – said the Senate Judiciary Committee should begin a dismissal investigation to determine if Kavanaugh had lied to Congress.

To overthrow Kavanaugh, it would require a majority vote in the Democrat-controlled House, and an extremely improbable two-thirds vote in the GOP-majority Senate would then be required to remove him from office. The Senate has never convicted a judge or president of the Supreme Court, although eight lower-level federal judges have been.

The long probabilities did not prevent the candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential election from joining the effort.

"I attended these hearings," Harris wrote on Twitter. "Brett Kavanaugh has lied to the US Senate and, more importantly, to the American people, has been put to court in a fictitious process and his place in the court is an insult to the search for truth and justice. must be removed. "

During the hearings, Harris strongly suggested that she knew that Kavanaugh had wrongly discussed the ongoing investigation of special advocate Robert Mueller with a Trump-related lawyer.

Harris provided no evidence of the insinuation of the bomb, which turned to social media and plunged the audience room into stunned silence, even as she directly accused Kavanaugh. to lie under oath.

Castro and Warren echoed this sentiment and claimed that Kavanaugh had committed perjury.

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"It's clearer than ever that Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath," Castro wrote. "He should be dismissed, and Congress should consider the failure of the Justice Department to properly investigate the case."

Warren wrote: "Last year, Kavanaugh's candidacy was approved by the Senate without a thorough review of the charges against him.Confirmation is not an exemption, and these new revelations are worrisome.As the one who l & rsquo; Named, Kavanaugh should be dismissed. "

O 'Rourke claimed to "know" that Kavanaugh had lied under oath and falsely claimed that the new accuser was not known to Democratic Senators or the FBI last year.

"Yesterday we learned of the existence of another charge against Brett Kavanaugh – a charge that we were not aware of before it was confirmed because the Senate forced the F. -BI to rush to save his candidacy, "said O & # 39; Rourke. "We know that he lied under oath and he should be removed."

Senator Cory Booker, D-N.J., tweeted in part, "this new allegation and this corroborating evidence add to a long list of reasons why Brett Kavanaugh should not be a Supreme Court Judge." I stand alongside survivors and countless Americans to demand the opening of an impeachment proceeding ".

Amy Klobuchar did not call for dismissal, but published a photo of Kavanaugh's accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, with the words: "Never forget what courage looks like."

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At the same time, Bernie Sanders said he was in favor of eliminating Kavanaugh by all available legal means: "Today's revelations confirm what we already knew: at his hearing, Kavanaugh did faced with credible accusations and probably lied to Congress.I support any proper constitutional mechanism him responsible. "

While the calls were called, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Fought back Sunday afternoon. Twitter – and said that Kavanaugh was not going anywhere.

"The far-left willingness to seize totally unsubstantiated and unfounded allegations during last year's confirmation process was a dark and embarrassing chapter of the Senate," wrote McConnell.

"Fortunately, a majority of Senators and American citizens have rallied to timeless principles such as respect for legality and the presumption of innocence." I look forward to Judge Kavanaugh serving for many years. "

The Times article also stated that long before Kavanaugh became a federal judge, "at least seven people" had heard of how he would have exposed himself to Deborah Ramirez at a party.

Ramirez had called her classmates to Yale to corroborate her story and had even told some of her classmates that she could not remember the culprit of the alleged episode – before she changed her mind and blamed Kavanaugh publicly "after six days spent carefully evaluating his memories and consulting his lawyer," reported the New Yorker last year in a largely ridiculous article.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, then headed by Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote in a summary of its investigation that it had contacted Ramirez's counsel "seven times to obtain evidence in support of the claims made in the New Yorker ", but" Mrs. Ramirez has nothing in response and refused a request for the Committee's interview. "

Late Sunday, Grassley's office called the Times for omitting vital details in the story published this weekend.

"@New York Times did not contact Senator Grassley's office for this story. If they did, we would have reminded them of some key public facts that they omitted, "Grassley's team wrote. Despite 7 attempts by the staff, Ms. Ramirez's lawyers refused to provide the documentary evidence cited in the article / testimonials to the support. the revendications. They also refused Ms. Ramirez's invitations to meet with investigators of the committee or to provide a written statement. "

In addition, the FBI separately contacted a dozen people to corroborate the allegations of Ford and Ramirez, and finally spoke to ten people and two eyewitnesses, but apparently found no corroboration.

The investigation of the agency began after Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, called for a one-week delay at Kavanaugh's hearings confirmation hearings so that an independent body could review the complaints against him. Flake said the FBI's investigation should be limited in length to avoid derailing the proceedings with endless claims and investigations going back to Kavanaugh's high school years.

Kavanaugh, predicted by the Democrats during his confirmation process, would be a radical conservative, often taken alongside liberal judges in the last term of the Supreme Court.

At the same time, the president accused the media of trying to influence Kavanaugh. He also added that Kavanaugh should go on the offensive and attack the media for false statements.

"Brett Kavanaugh should start suing people for defamation, otherwise the Justice Department should come to his rescue, the lies told about him are unbelievable, false accusations without recrimination, when does that stop? to influence his opinions, can not let this happen! " tweeted.

Grassley sent several criminal cases to the Department of Justice regarding alleged lies submitted to Senate investigators during Kavanaugh's confirmation process – which could be what the President meant when he wrote Sunday that the DOJ "should come [Kavanuagh’s] to help. "

One of these references concerned today's discredited lawyer, Michael Avenatti, and one of his clients, Julie Swetnick, about a possible "conspiracy" to misrepresent and obstruct Congress. to his inquiry. Swetnick's credibility took a hit by changing her story about Kavanaugh's alleged gang rapes, and her ex-boyfriend publicly stated that she was known to have "exaggerated everything".

Swetnick and Ramirez are just two of the women who have accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct during his confirmation process. Ford testified, among other things, that Kavanaugh attempted to sexually assault her during a teenage party and had dubiously claimed that the memory was "indelible" in her "seahorse" – although No witness can corroborate his ever-changing story – even his long-time friend, Leland Keyser, who, according to Ford, had attended the party.

According to the Times' new book of reporters, Keyser did not believe in Ford's story and refused to change his mind, despite pressure from progressive activists and Ford's friends.

"It made no sense," said Keyser, referring to Ford's explanation that she had been assaulted at an evening at which Keyser had been attending, without being able to remember how she was had come home.

Ford's lawyer, Debra Katz, was quoted in a new book, claiming that Ford was motivated to show up in part by his desire to mark Kavanaugh's reputation as an "asterisk" before it was over. he can begin to rule on abortion-related cases.

"In the aftermath of these hearings, I think Christine's testimony has brought more good than the misery caused by the misogynist Republicans caused by Kavanaugh's authorization at the bar," said Katz. "He will always wear an asterisk next to his name.When he'll wear a scalpel to Roe v. Wade, we'll know who he is, we know his character and we know what motivates him and it's important .

"It's important that we know, and that's part of what motivated Christine."

The federalist announced last week that Ford's father had privately supported Kavanaugh's confirmation and spoke to Ed Kavanaugh at a golf course to indicate his support.

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Some of the statements made during Kavanaugh's confirmation collapsed in a few days. For example, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, DR.I, received a call from an anonymous voter who claimed that in 1985, two "heavily intoxicated men," referred to as "Brett and Mark "had sexually assaulted one of his friends on a boat. .

The accuser's Twitter account apparently would have advocated a military coup against the Trump administration. The voter withdrew the complaint for sexual assault on the social network site a few days later.

Andrew Craft of Fox News in Plano, Texas, Chad Pergram and Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.