The Wall Street Journal reports that there is evidence that a close friend of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was pressured into “revisiting” her testimony regarding an alleged assault by a teenaged Brett Kavanaugh, according to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley.
“There is evidence I can’t speak about it because it’s in the FBI report but there’s evidence about other people that have been questioned that they were led into it as well,” he said on Fox & Friends. “So this is another example of headquarters for the resistance being right here on Capitol Hill.
And the person who pressured Leland Keyser to revisit her testimony was Monica McLean, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who left the agency just as President Trump was taking office, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The WSJ reports Ms. Keyser told FBI investigators “that she felt pressured by Dr. Ford’s allies to revisit her initial statement that she knew nothing about an alleged sexual assault.”
She later revised her statement to say that she believed Dr. Ford but could not corroborate her account, the WSJ reported.
Dr. Ford allegedly helped McLean prepare for a polygraph test in the 1990, according to a written declaration by Ford’s ex-boyfriend.
“He said he saw Ford going to great lengths to help a woman he believed was her ‘life-long best friend’ prepare for a potential polygraph test. He added that the woman, Monica McLean, had been interviewing for jobs with the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s office,” Fox News reported Thursday.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley is demanding Ford’s lawyers turn over therapy notes, polygraph materials and communications with the media, as well as urging the Ford legal team to turn over records of communications between Dr. Ford and the offices of Senators Feinstein and Hirono.
Rufus J. Squalus says
I find it particularly convenient that after his appointment, nothing is being pursued further. There’s nothing to gain now, huh? Ford, who barely had any credibility from the get-go, has decided to walk away from what could have been another amazing win for the Democratic blockade runners. Seems like… it was… all made up? It’s sad that this is how politics is conducted in our world. If we don’t like someone, it’s much easier to make up a lie about grab@**ing, than go after them for their political worldview, vote records/votes in absentia, or, literally ANYTHING else. Not only is it playing dirty, it’s just cheap.
Shame on you, Democrats. And more importantly, Christine- seek life elsewhere.
Paul Plante says
I think Blue Hoss summed it up best elsewhere when he called this farce being fed to us by the Democrats in Washington, D.C. the best cheap entertainment there is today, which is quite true.
Poor Christine Blasey Ford – one truly wonders what to make of her, beyond someone who has a lot is issues she needs to work hard on overcoming.
I found it quite interesting to watch all of her multitude of facial expressions as her part of the show rolled the other day, many of which can be witnessed in the Daily Mail article “‘This is NOT an investigation’: Dr Christine Blasey Ford’s lawyers blast FBI’s probe after Kavanaugh accuser was NOT interviewed” by Khaleda Rahman published 4 October 2018.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6238735/Dr-Christine-Blasey-Fords-lawyers-blast-FBIs-probe.html
There is one particularly touching video in there where Dr. Ford “tears up” after Senator Blumenthal talked to her about her courage.
As to her polygraph test, FOX News had an interesting story on the subject entitled “Kavanaugh accuser Christine Ford releases results of polygraph test, but key detail appears to contradict past statements” by Gregg Re published September 26, 2018 wherein is stated as follows:
Lawyers for Christine Blasey Ford, the California professor accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a party more than three decades ago, on Wednesday released the results of a polygraph examination she took Aug. 7 — but a key detail in the report appears to contradict Ford’s past claims.
The examination, which was administered by former FBI agent Jeremiah Hanafin, took place in a Hilton hotel in Maryland, according to a “Polygraph Examination Report” compiled by Hanafin.
Hanafin first allowed Ford and attorney Lisa Banks to meet alone to formulate a handwritten statement that Ford signed and provided Hanafin when he returned to the room.
end quotes
That was so that Ford and her lawyer would try to get straight exactly which version of events she was going to tell that day.
Getting back to the story:
Then, without Banks present, Hanafin interviewed Ford about the day of the alleged assault, according to the report.
In the handwritten statement, Ford writes that “there were 4 boys and a couple of girls” at the party.
But in Ford’s letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in July, Ford gave a different tally, writing that the gathering “included me and 4 others.”
end quotes
Now, it has later come out that Charles Grassley, a Republican, got her confused, so it is only natural that she would be telling different versions of the story on different days, because let’s face it, and we all know this to be true, that is what being confused does to one, does it not?
Getting back to that story:
The total number of people at the purported party, and their genders, has been a key area of focus for Senate Republicans investigating Ford’s claims.
Ford told The Washington Post last week that there were a total of “four boys at the party” where the alleged episode occurred, and that two — Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge — had been in the room during her attack.
According to The Post, Ford told her therapist in 2012 that four boys were in the room with her during the alleged attack — a disparity she has blamed on her therapist’s recording of her statements.
end quotes
See, there really are very logical reasons here why so many different versions of her story exist.
And back to the story where Leland Keyser comes in, to wit:
All of the witnesses Ford has identified at the party, including Kavanaugh, Judge, and another classmate, Patrick Smyth, have denied knowledge of the alleged assault under penalty of felony in statements to the Judiciary Committee.
However, a woman, Leland Ingham Keyser, a former classmate of Ford’s at the Holton-Arms all-girls school in Maryland, has since been identified by Ford as the fourth witness at the party.
In a dramatic twist, Keyser emerged Saturday night to say she doesn’t know Kavanaugh or remember being at the party with him.
end quotes
That serves to add the spice of pure bull**** to this story, as we are told in the FOX News story “Christine Blasey Ford ex-boyfriend says she helped friend prep for potential polygraph; Grassley sounds alarm” by Gregg Re and John Roberts on 5 October 2018, as follows:
“Your continued withholding of material evidence despite multiple requests is unacceptable as the Senate exercises its constitutional responsibility of advice and consent for a judicial nomination,” Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote.
Under questioning from experienced sex-crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell last week, Ford said that she had “never” had “any discussions with anyone … on how to take a polygraph” or “given any tips or advice to anyone who was looking to take a polygraph test.”
Ford’s defense team and Democrats have repeatedly cited Ford’s polygraph results as proof her credibility.
Mitchell, in a report Sunday, said Ford’s case was even weaker than the typical “He said, she said” situation and pointed out numerous discrepencies in her version of events that have emerged in the past several weeks, concerning everything from how many people were at the purported party to when it occurred and how she found her way home.
Mitchell also noted that none of the witnesses Ford identified as having attended the party could back up her version of events.
In a separate letter to Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, who also sits on the Judiciary Committee, Grassley wrote, “The accuser freely admits to having no evidence whatsoever that Judge Kavanaugh even attended this party.”
“… We’ve reached a new level of absurdity with this allegation.”
end quotes
That’s telling it like it is, which brings us back to the Fox News story on the polygraph test, as follows:
The polygraph exam consisted of only two “relevant” questions: “Is any part of your statement false?” and “Did you make up any part of your statement?”
The test measured “thoracic and abdominal respiration, galvanic skin response, and cardiac activity,” Hanafin wrote in the report.
The former FBI agent then ran the results of Ford’s two “no” responses through three separate scoring algorithms, including one developed by Johns Hopkins University.
All three algorithms concluded that Ford’s responses did not indicate apparent deception, with one putting the probability that she was lying at .002 and another putting it at less than .02.
Experts contacted by Fox News warned against reading too much into the results of polygraph examinations.
“It’s not the result of the polygraph; it is what polygraph subjects say during the polygraph interview that is most valuable,” said Thomas Mauriello, a lecturer in criminology at the University of Maryland who worked as a senior polygraph examiner at the Defense Department.
“The result of a polygraph simply is whether you did or did not respond to a particular question.”
“A response is not a lie, because the polygraph is not a lie detector as most think,” Mauriello added.
“A response is the activation of your sympathetic nervous system when answering a question asked during the examination.”
Ford had provided The Washington Post the results of apparently the same polygraph examination earlier this month, as well as notes from her therapist sessions in 2012.
It was not immediately clear who paid for the polygraph examination, which can cost more than $1,000 — an issue flagged by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Fox News’ “Hannity” last week.
“If Ms. Ford really did not want to come forward, never intended to come forward … why did she pay for a polygraph in August, and why did she hire a lawyer in August?”
“And who paid for it?” Graham asked.
Even well-intentioned individuals who have come to believe that their false stories are, in fact, true — whether because of therapist-induced memories or other causes — can sometimes pass polygraph tests, former FBI officials and psychology experts told Fox News.
James Gagliano, a former FBI agent who led a SWAT team in New York for several years and now teaches at St. John’s University, told Fox News that while polygraphs are valuable, they “can be beaten.”
“In this case, if they want to put this out as irrefutable evidence that this woman is telling the truth because she passed a polygraph — that’s not the way polygraphs work,” Gagliano added.
“If that were the case, I would’ve taken every drug dealer, gangbanger, and pedophile I investigated, and I would’ve thrown them on the polygraph.”
Gagliano, who said he was subjected to several polygraphs at the FBI but never administered one himself, said people can sometimes pass polygraphs if they’ve convinced themselves they are telling the truth: “It’s not a lie if you believe it,” he said.
“Everyone knows polygraph exams can be beaten,” Gagliano added.
“If someone is a psychopath or a sociopath, if you don’t have a conscience, if you don’t know right from wrong — you can beat it.”
end quotes
Which is an excellent segue to the Washington Examiner story “Christine Blasey Ford’s lawyers demand senators stop spreading ‘lies’” by Caitlin Yilek on 6 October 2018, as follows:
Lawyers for Christine Blasey Ford scolded senators for spreading “lies” about their client in an effort to bolster support for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Attorneys Debra Katz, Lisa Banks, and Michael Bromwich released a list of misinformation that they said has been used to “undermine the credibility” of Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when the two were in high school more than three decades ago.
The lawyers argued it could not have been a “meaningful” investigation because Ford and Kavanaugh were not interviewed.
If the FBI interviewed Ford she would have provided investigators with her medical records and given them access to a phone from which she exchanged messages with a reporter about her allegation before Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court, they said.
“The suggestion that our refusal to give medical records to the Judiciary Committee bears on Dr. Ford’s credibility is completely false,” the statement said, adding that every document they handed over to the committee was released publicly, and thus they lost confidence that Ford’s medical records would remain confidential.
A day earlier, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Ford’s lawyers to share notes from Ford’s therapist, polygraph materials, and her communication with a reporter from the Washington Post.
Ford’s lawyers had previously said they would only turn over the evidence if she was interviewed by the FBI.
“It’s not even clear to me what purpose turning over these materials to the FBI would accomplish.”
“The FBI would simply turn over that evidence to the Senate.”
“That is precisely the outcome I seek with this request,” Grassley said.
end quotes
As was said at the beginning, what cheap entertainment the Democrats have handed us here.
Blue Hoss, dude, you have nailed it!
Paul Plante says
As to the center of resistance being right there in Washington, D.C., how on earth can anyone even begin to doubt it?
The epicenter of the resistance, of course, as we saw in the Gothamist story “New Yorkers Put Schumer On Blast: ‘Stand Up Or Get Out Of The Way'” by Raphael Pope-Sussman on Feb. 1, 2017 10:31 am is the U.S. Senator from New York City Charley “Chuck” Schumer, to wit:
Hundreds of New Yorkers braved freezing temperatures Tuesday night on Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza at a rally calling upon U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to take a firm stand against the Trump administration.
The rally was the latest in a series of weekly gatherings poetically dubbed “What the F*ck, Chuck?” outside the senator’s Brooklyn home on Prospect Park West and his offices in Midtown.
As a series of speakers stood on a platform and shouted over a mobile PA system, protesters cheered and jeered as they held signs with slogans like “Buck Up Chuck”; “Resisting Trump Is Your Primary Duty”; and “Filibuster Filibuster Filibuster.”
Hae-Lin Choi, of the Democratic Socialists of America and Resist Trump NY, took the stage first, announcing herself as an immigrant and telling the crowd why organizers had called for the protest.
“We planned this rally to Schumer’s home to help him find the spine and maybe some of the other body parts he needs to grow,” she said, citing Schumer’s early “yea” votes on Trump’s nominees to lead Defense, Homeland Security, and the Central Intelligence Agency.
Choi said organizers were encouraged by Schumer’s announcement in recent days that he would vote no on eight more nominees, but that they see this as a bare minimum and they intend to keep up the pressure.
“Senator Schumer must be bold and stand with the working class,” she cried over the loudspeaker.
“He has to champion the resistance or get out of the way and we’ll find someone that will.”
As Choi spoke, the crowd chanted, “Stand up, or get out of the way.”
That was the common theme running through the speeches -“meet our demands or you will feel our wrath at the ballot box.”
end quotes
Lacking spine and those other body parts he’s missing according to Hae-Lin Choi of the Democratic Socialists of America and Resist Trump NY, Charley “Chuck” caved in a New York minute, and has been their running dog, a servile follower, especially of a political system, in the Senate ever since, barking when told to bark and biting on their command.
That Gothamist story then continued as follows:
Paulina Davis, vice chair of the organization National Women’s Liberation and a member of its Women of Color Caucus, blasted President Donald Trump’s nomination of Georgia Congressman Tom Price, a hard-right opponent of reproductive rights, to be secretary of Health and Human Services.
Davis issued a warning to Senate Democrats considering supporting what she called Trump’s “anti-woman, anti-abortion, profit-over-people” nominees.
“If you don’t ensure that we put up a big fight,” she said, “we will replace you with someone who will.”
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Those words were said to have had Charley “Chuck” Schumer literally quaking in his boots at the thought of them replacing him with someone else who would do their bidding for them, so he quickly became their lickspittle, a person who behaves obsequiously to those in power, so they would keep him around.
But still, there is more:
Park Slope resident Francesca Valerio, who stood not far from the gas generator for the PA that kicked choking fumes upon a brave swath of the crowd, said she didn’t have much experience with political activism, but that Trump’s election had brought her out into the streets.
Like many in the crowd who spoke to Gothamist, her feelings for Schumer seemed a bit softer than the speakers’.
“I’m pretty happy with Chuck,” she said.
“But I want him to do everything he can.”
Also represented at the rally were speakers from the grassroots Muslim group MPower Change, SEIU Local 32BJ, the Communication Workers of America, and New York Communities for Change.
Patrick Youngkin, a member of CWA Local 1102 and a former Marine, shouted gleefully, bringing the crowd to a fury.
“I fought for the right to protest, I fought for the right to assemble, and hold elected officials accountable,” he said.
“Senator Schumer, your constituents, we’re going to take this fight to the street.”
“But it’s your duty as Senate minority leader to take this fight to the floor.”
end quotes
And thus, just as Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley intimated above, the headquarters for the resistance being right there on Capitol Hill began with New York’s Charley “Chuck” Schumer in command, aided in this case by California’s own Dianne Feinstein, the authoress of this sick show in Washington. D.C. starring Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, the woman of a thousand faces, and her legal team the nation and candid world were just presented with.
Getting back to the Gothamist article:
After an hour or so of speeches, organizers directed protesters to march the few hundred feet from Grand Army Plaza to the area on Prospect Park West across from Schumer’s apartment building.
The crowd chanted the usual protest fare – ”This is what democracy looks like” but also more pointed messages, like “What the f**k, Chuck?” and “Grow a spine.”
Angelo Roefaro, a spokesperson for Schumer, explained in an email to Gothamist that the senator has been working to oppose Trump.
“From day one, Senator Schumer made it very clear that he had major concerns with at least eight of the nominees in what he termed the ‘swamp cabinet’ of billionaires and bankers,” he wrote.
“He fought off the Republican effort to bum rush this group through the Senate in one fell swoop, and instead forced a series of hearings to more fully question them and examine their records and their conflicts of interest.”
end quotes
And Charley “Chuck” continues that opposition and obstruction out of fear of those protestors coming back.
And if that left any doubts about the intentions of Charley “Chuck” Schumer and the Democrats to do all they can to disrupt the functioning of our national government, just before that, the Associated Press had a story by Lisa Lerer on 31 January 2017 wherein was stated as follows:
In the weeks after Trump’s election, Democrats debated whether the party should work with the new president on discrete policy initiatives, like infrastructure, or present a wall of opposition.
As protests sprang forth across the country, their furious constituents made it clear they’re demanding nothing short of complete resistance.
end quotes
How many different meanings can one ascribe to the terms “a wall of opposition” and “complete resistance,” especially after this show we just had presented to us by Dianne Feinstein and the Democrats with this Blasey Ford hearing?
Getting back to that Associated Press article, it continued as follows:
Hundreds of demonstrators, chanting “Just Say No!” and “Obstruct!,” shouted down Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse at a Sunday community event, protesting the Rhode Island Democrat’s vote in favor of new CIA director Mike Pompeo.
And more than 3,500 people have signed up on Facebook to march across Brooklyn to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer’s home Tuesday night to protest his support for three of Trump’s Cabinet nominees.
And Schumer said he’d vote against eight of Trump’s Cabinet picks.
“We need Senate Democrats to do everything in their power to shut down business as usual in the Senate,” said Anna Galland, the executive director of Moveon.org, a liberal group that’s been involved in organizing weekly anti-Trump protests.
The national party hopes to ride the energy of airport protests, women’s marches and dozens of other actions across the country to electoral victories in governor races this year and next year’s congressional midterms.
end quotes
And here we are, a year and 10 months later, with those mid-terms looming large on the horizon, and that Democrat plan is still playing out, which has me saying thank God for the Cape Charles Mirror so this story of Senate Democrats doing everything in their power to shut down business as usual in the Senate can be properly told.
Deborah A. Bender says
Clearly the Dems should have found someone with a little more credibility than CBF! She is crazy and everybody can see it. The Democrats would walk through fire to stop anything that Donald Trump wants to do. It’s getting rather tiring to watch the Democrats continually fight Donald Trump. It’s really sad that they are allowed to constantly fight our nation’s president!
Paul Plante says
I personally think as an American citizen who has been a student of our form of government as outlined in the Federalist Papers since I was five years old in kindergarten right after WWII that there is something much more basic going on here, and that is nothing less than complete control of OUR national government, which these Democrats consider nothing more than a bauble to be viciously fought for, no holds barred, because complete control of our national government then gives them complete control over our lives, and then God help those who are now in Hillary Clinton’s “BASKET OF DEPLORABLES,” which still exists.
They will find life very hard for them if the Democrats do succeed in gaining control of the House and Senate this November.
Ig is just as was said in the Associated Press story above by Lisa Lerer on 31 January 2017, as follows:
“We need Senate Democrats to do everything in their power to shut down business as usual in the Senate,” said Anna Galland, the executive director of Moveon.org, a liberal group that’s been involved in organizing weekly anti-Trump protests.
The national party hopes to ride the energy of airport protests, women’s marches and dozens of other actions across the country to electoral victories in governor races this year and next year’s congressional midterms.
Paul Plante says
Murky is the only term I can find to describe how it was that this Dr. Ford, who I have come to think of as con-job foisted off on the American people by Dianne Feinstein, who of course says she is not guilty of any skullduggery (underhanded or unscrupulous behavior; trickery), and her legal team, managed to come on the scene and become a star here.
Was she recruited?
Or did she work this all out in advance on her own?
I have made every effort to collect and read everything that has been printed on this truly bizarre drama, and all of it combined makes me think Dr. Ford, with her thousand faces she can call up on demand, a smile one minute, and then, a face like a little girl crying, and back to the serious professor face, is a classic Democrat party fraud.
Consider the Washington Post (“democracy dies in darkness”) story “Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford moved 3,000 miles to reinvent her life. It wasn’t far enough.” by Jessica Contrera, Ian Shapira, Emma Brown, and Steve Hendrix on 22 September 2018, where we have as follows:
Her master’s thesis explored the relationship between trauma and depression.
Ford dedicated herself to continuing that kind of research as she taught graduate classes at Stanford and Palo Alto University.
She is beloved by students for her easy-to-understand lectures — complete with surfing metaphors — and admired by colleagues for her analytical mind and inventive mathematical models.
She took a particular interest in resilience and post-traumatic growth — the ideas that people who endure trauma can return to normal and even wind up stronger than before.
Ford said she has given speeches about this topic to students, telling them, “You can always recover.”
end quotes
Now, I was never pushed into a room by the allegedly drunken son of a Washington lawyer who then laid on top of me and tried to grope me, so I can’t say what kind of trauma that might have induced in me, probably none, but there definitely would have been some trauma inflicted on various parts of the drunk, starting with his scrotum, but I was wounded in the head in Viet Nam and left for dead, admittedly not the same kind or degree of trauma Dr. Ford said getting groped by Brett Kavanaugh inflicted on her, which seems far more serious than what happened to me, but nonetheless, I have been diagnosed with a real case of PTSD, and I live with it, and I have followed that advice about the ideas that people who endure trauma can return to normal and even wind up stronger than before, and I find it to be true – what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger – so why didn’t her own advice then apply to her?
In this video excerpt https://vimeo.com/225005268 password helicopter, I can be seen and heard talking about an event in my life that is as seared in my memory as is the first orgasm of Connie Chung, as recounted in great detail by the Washington Post, seared in hers, and if you watch my face, you see none of the histrionics displayed by Dr. Ford in the recent hearings, so what is up with that?
I’ll go to my grave with that memory, but it doesn’t cripple me like Dr. Ford seems crippled by the memory of Brett Kavanaugh laying on top of her, so as a trauma survivor, I just must wonder what the hell is up here.
Which takes us to the CNN article “Attorneys: Christine Blasey Ford doesn’t want Kavanaugh impeached, has no regrets” by Sophie Tatum on October 5, 2018, where we have as follows:
Additionally, Ford’s lawyer responded to President Donald Trump’s comments at a campaign rally earlier this week where he had appeared to mock her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Banks said Ford was “upset by it.”
“It was very hurtful, as it would be to any woman.”
“Any survivor who had the courage to come forward only to be mocked and belittled by anyone really, but certainly by the President of the United States, it was very upsetting.”
“It was very hurtful,” she said.
end quotes
Now, as a survivor of life itself, including being shot in the head and left for dead in Viet Nam, I truly have to wonder just exactly what it is that Christine Blasey Ford is as survivor of, given all the different versions of her story that I have collected to date.
And when you put all these things together, especially all this “survivor” crap being dished out by her lawyers, it just has that rank smell of pure bull**** to it, as well as a fraud on the nation, which I might say as a loyal American citizen, I find a bit upsetting.
Is Dr. Ford really crazy?
Perhaps – she certainly comes across as being so in her testimony before the Senate panel last week.
Or is she crazy like a fox?
A true question for our times if there ever was one!
Paul Plante says
With respect to the Supreme Court, the first mention of it as a necessity in this country is in FEDERALIST No. 22, “Other Defects of the Present Confederation,” from the New York Packet to the People of the State of New York by Alexander Hamilton on Friday, December 14, 1787, as follows:
A circumstance which crowns the defects of the Confederation remains yet to be mentioned, the want of a judiciary power.
Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation.
To produce uniformity in these determinations, they ought to be submitted, in the last resort, to one SUPREME TRIBUNAL.
end quotes
The shrieking, howling mob the Democrats wield like a club, which is their talent, whipping up mobs, want to take control of that supreme tribunal, and if and when they do, the law most certainly will become a dead letter, as Democrat Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor proved beyond a shadow of a doubt as an appeals court judge on the federal 2d Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City in 2005 in Plante v. Bechard et. al., 05-2133-CV, where she lied and buried evidence to protect endemic public corruption in New York state that feeds the coffers of the Democrat party that is the protector of corruption in New York, and has been since the days of the Tweed Ring and Tammany Hall.
Sonia Sotomayor is a stain on our American ideal of justice, and for that reason, should be impeached and removed from the federal Supreme Court bench!