Ed Whelan—long-time associate and friend of Brett Kavanaugh, former law clerk for Antonin Scalia, and president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center—cooked up a scheme to extract Kavanaugh from his little sexual assault issue through the highly ethical route of publicly accusing someone else without evidence. Except that Whelan didn’t do this on his own. As part of the team of Republicans working to coach Kavanagh through his Senate hearings, Whelan admits he spent days creating this “theory” before spewing it across Twitter, and he discussed it with others involved in Kavanaugh’s nomination. Unknown at this time:
- Was Kavanaugh part of creating the plan to escape blame by accusing a middle school teacher of sexual assault?
- With Kavanaugh at the White House every day this week, was Whelan also working on this scheme inside the White House?
- Who else was aware of Whelan’s scheme before he went public with it on Thursday?
- Were Fox and other media outlets prompted that this story was coming?
Whelan certainly wasn’t the only Republican pushing this idea. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has already suggested that Dr. Blasey Ford might be “mixed-up” in naming Kavanaugh. On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial calling the accusation against Kavanaugh a “me too ambush” and stating that “mistaken identity is also possible.” Just a day before Whelan went on his Twitter rant, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker published a column in which she referenced the WSJ editorial and pondered whether or not there could be “a Kavanaugh doppelganger” saying that “as crazy as that sounds” the idea that Dr. Ford mistook someone else for Kavanaugh “would make the most sense.”
The multiple suggestions in the media before Whelan’s public thread, the admission that the idea was workshopped with other Kavanaugh supporters, and the quick pick-up of the story by Fox and others suggest that this story was widely discussed in advance of publication. Searching for a way to clear Kavanaugh’s name, Republicans decided the easiest choice was simply to blame someone else. Evidence and impact be damned. Which makes this now-deleted tweet from just a few days ago all the more special.
Fox & Friends spent a good chunk of the morning unwinding the Twitter thread step by step, so that everyone on the right could get on board with the talking points and Donald Trump could catch up on the latest version of the story while in his PJs.
Despite the fact that he’s a lawyer and a former clerk for Scalia, Whelan seems to have taken about twelve hours to realize that he was open to both civil and criminal charges for his evil Hardy Boys Twitter thread. On Friday morning, he began deleting tweets and posted an awkward apology—over a story that had already been blasted out to millions on Fox and elsewhere. Whelan has now deleted the original Twitter thread, which has already done the desired harm.
So … here it is in all its false accusational, this is what passes for ethics on the right, “glory.” Whelan begins by admitting that something may have happened to Dr. Blasey Ford but her accusations are 36 years old and “vague.” However, Whelan says Kavanaugh’s denial of events are “compelling.” Because … well, because.
Whelan gets out the map to prove that none of the homes of those so far identified was close enough to meet his exacting standards for “not far from.”
Whelan then points a finger at a house, apparently because it’s closer to the identified country club. And he provides the first glimpse of his soon to be familiar floor plans. But wait, he’s still preparing to twirl his Poirot-stache and name the killer
As Whelan continues, note that every last bit of this has been generated from his interpretation of “not far from” means. That is is ONLY “evidence” to point at this residence.
More floor plans. Whelan is now conducting forensic choreography of events that he just called so “vague” that they should be discounted.
In the next tweet, Whelan has his ah-ha drawing room moment as posts the high school picture of a man who lived at the house he has fingered. The whole thing is that man’s picture and a complete recounting of his high school activities, apparently copied from a school year book.
I’m skipping that Tweet.
Instead, I’m moving straight on to the next one, in which Whelan insists that this man was friends with Mike Judge, who was identified as being present during the assault by Kavanaugh. This is the only evidence that Whelan offers that the two were friends—a single response to a 2012 “how was your weekend” post on Facebook. That’s the whole connection.
Because it’s impossible to describe the nature of the following tweets without showing them, I’ve included the tweets, but blacked out the name of the man Whelan is accusing. Note that the two high school images are displayed in a form that makes it appear they came off the same photographic plate as images of Lincoln at Gettysburg. Degraded to this level any two white high school students in North America would be similar.
Having established that there was more than one white male at all male, 97 percent white Georgetown Prep, and that one of them actually lived closer to a named country club than Kavanaugh, Whelan moves on to the next part of his case. Except … no. That is his case.
Seriously. Someone lived closer. They were also a white guy. That’s the whole thing. But that last tweet in this is extra, extra special. “It is regrettable that private citizens are being drawn into this.” They are being drawn into this by the person writing the post. The person who is the president of the freaking Ethics in Public Policy Center. The person who is not just throwing blame on someone else for sexual assault, but in the same tweet throwing blame on someone else for his throwing blame on someone else. It’s meta-awful.
Ed Whelan wrote this and posted it, He worked on it for days. He deserves to be sued not just out of every dime he owns or will ever own, but out of existence.
But he wasn’t alone in this. He workshopped this. He discussed it with others. There were people inside Kavanaugh’s support team who knew this was coming. That may include White House attorneys. It may include Kavanaugh himself. It may include Donald Trump.
Who knew this was coming? Who helped put it together. Who else was involved?
That’s not casting blame, that’s putting it where it belongs.