By M.S.R. | WASHINGTON, DC
LAST SEPTEMBER Americans watched transfixed as Christine Blasey Ford, an academic psychologist, told a televised hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee that Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s latest nominee to the Supreme Court bench, had sexually assaulted her 36 years earlier. Her account seemed troublingly plausible—and the judge’s response intemperate and highly partisan. Justice Kavanaugh rejected his accuser’s tearful claims as a “political hit”, “revenge on behalf of the Clintons” and the result of “millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition jobs”. His Republican supporters duly confirmed his elevation to the court. Democrats and women’s rights groups were incensed.
The row has now been reinvigorated by another allegation against the justice, dating back to his student days. On September 14th the New York Times published an article adapted from a book by two of its journalists which described a recollection by Max Stier, a contemporary of Justice Kavanaugh’s at Yale. Mr Stier, the book said, recalled seeing the future justice with his trousers down at a party, and friends pushing his penis into a young woman’s hand.
