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Reopened Kavanaugh Hearing Next Monday

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Kristina Peterson and Peter Nicholas report for the WSJ:

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing next Monday with the woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, according to lawmakers and aides.

The hearing would give the public an chance to hear more about the three-decades-old accusations against Judge Kavanaugh that now threaten to derail his nomination to the high court. The Senate is expected to announce details of the hearing shortly.

Since my previous post, it has come out that the allegations are more serious than the earlier bland term "misconduct" implied. On the other hand, not only has Judge Kavanaugh vigorously denied that the incident happened at all, the other person allegedly in the room has also.

So we will have another hearing, just as we did with the late-breaking allegations against Justice Thomas all those years ago. A Senate committee hearing is not a particularly good forum for resolving disputed allegations of fact. Millions of people watched the Anita Hill hearing, and listening to their evaluations you sometimes have to wonder if they watched the same hearing. In my mind, the most probative fact was that Hill followed Thomas to a new job at a new agency not only willingly but apparently eagerly, not even asking Thomas's successor if she could stay. Others saw it quite differently.

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