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A middle-school teacher and old friend of Brett Kavanaugh woke up this morning to find that he had been falsely accused of a sexual assault from his high school days, thrown to the wolves in the desperate efforts by Kavanaugh's new friends to get him a Supreme Court seat. It was a wildly ridiculous story, not to mention defamatory and horrifying, but it's what the team pushing Kavanaugh's nomination has spent days cooking. Starting, apparently, with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT).
That "she's just mixed up" story started with Hatch and Kavanaugh. On Monday, Hatch told reporters that Kavanaugh is "honest" and "straightforward" and that the explanation might be that Christine Blasey Ford is "mixed up" and it had to be someone else, because, he said, Kavanaugh assured him he wasn't even at the party.
At some point probably Tuesday, in what appears to be a deleted tweet but lives on in screenshots, the author of the incredible theory tweets "A horrific incident similar to the one the accuser alleges may well have occurred. But if so, she's got the wrong guy. Kavanaugh wasn't present, as this and much more will confirm." That was retweeted by a guy name Matt Whitlock, with the preview: "Keep an eye on Ed's tweets in the next few days." Who's Matt Whitlock? None other than Orrin Hatch's deputy chief of staff. Oh, and Whitlock deleted that retweet.
After he was called out for both retweeting and deleting his preview of Whelan's bizarre story he was forced to explain why he was apparently desperately trying to cover his tracks. He says "I didn't want to promote a thread that dragged an unrelated private citizen into this unfortunate situation." Oh, okay. It was fine when the unrelated private citizen was just some anonymous doppelganger to Kavanaugh, but one he had a name—and yes, Whelan named him—he realized how far off the rails this train was hurtling.
"I had no idea," he continues, "what Ed was planning (we’ve never spoken) beyond what he had tweeted about having info exonerating Kavanaugh." Taking that at face value, fine. But keep in mind his boss and Kavanaugh had started putting this idea of mistaken identity out there on Monday, Whelan had picked it up on Tuesday, and Whitlock was pointing to the "she's got the wrong guy" claims from Whelan on Wednesday.
But Hatch and team had nothing to do with any of it. Right.
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