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Conservative Pundit Points Finger at Another Man to Deflect from Kavanaugh

WASHINGTON — The head of a prominent conservative research organization apologized on Friday for a bizarre string of tweets in which he suggested that the woman accusing Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault might be confusing the judge for one of his high school classmates, whom he named and even posted pictures.

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Nicholas Fandos
, New York Times

WASHINGTON — The head of a prominent conservative research organization apologized on Friday for a bizarre string of tweets in which he suggested that the woman accusing Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault might be confusing the judge for one of his high school classmates, whom he named and even posted pictures.

Edward Whelan, the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a friend of Kavanaugh, faced swift condemnation from liberals and fellow conservatives Tuesday night after he posted a theory purporting to offer an alternative explanation for the story of Christine Blasey Ford, the California professor who has put the confirmation of President Donald Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee in jeopardy.

“I made an appalling and inexcusable mistake of judgment in posting the tweet thread in a way that identified Kavanaugh’s Georgetown Prep classmate,” Whelan wrote on Friday, after he deleted his earlier posts. “I take full responsibility for that mistake, and I deeply apologize for it. I realize that does not undo the mistake.”

Whelan did not apologize to Blasey or for his broader theory of mistaken identity, and in several other posts this week he has sought to cast doubt on her claims and to defend Kavanaugh’s innocence.

The White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill tried to distance themselves from the matter, saying they had only learned about the theory when they began receiving questions about it from reporters. Whelan once clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, served as a counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and worked with Kavanaugh in the White House of President George W. Bush. He is a well-connected member of Washington’s conservative legal establishment, an informal network that exercises considerable influence over the choice and confirmation fights of judicial nominees.

Whelan did not respond to an email or phone calls seeking comment on Friday, but he told The Washington Post in a brief interview that he had not communicated with Kavanaugh, the White House counsel or others at the White House “about the topic of the Twitter thread.”

Conservative operatives who have worked with Whelan raised doubts that he could have acted alone.

Steve Schmidt, an outspoken critic of the president who worked for Republicans before leaving the party, said Whelan had been the “singularly most important and effective outside adviser involved in the confirmation effort” of two earlier Republican court nominees whom Schmidt helped lead. “He is a brilliant, meticulous and serious lawyer,” Schmidt wrote on Twitter Friday. “He is not a conspiracy nut. It is inconceivable to me that Whelan published that email without discussions, debate and assistance from the WH and GOP Senators and staff.”

He added, “It is not the isolated musings of one man but rather part of a broader discreditation strategy.”

In a statement through her lawyers, Blasey flatly rejected the possibility that she had confused Kavanaugh with the classmate identified by Whelan.

“I knew them both, and socialized with” the classmate, Blasey said. She noted that she had once even visited the classmate in the hospital. “There is zero chance that I would confuse them.”

The man identified in the Twitter thread did not reply to phone messages seeking comment, and The New York Times is not naming him. In a letter to Democratic lawmakers and an interview with The Washington Post, Blasey has accused Kavanaugh of assaulting her at a small gathering of teens in suburban Washington when they were both in high school — an accusation that has threatened to derail his confirmation.

Blasey has said that as a friend watched, the future Kavanaugh pushed her onto a bed, where he jumped on top of her, groped her and tried to remove her clothing. At one point, he clapped his hand over her mouth to stop calls for help as the friend turned up the music. When the friend jumped on them, Blasey was able to dash out of the room.

Adamant denials by Kavanaugh — who says he does not even remember such a party taking place — and two other teenage males Blasey said were there have given rise in conservative circles to speculation that Blasey could have misidentified her assailant or, more than 30 years later, is misremembering the story.

It was into that murky space that Whelan confidently stepped on Tuesday.

“Dr. Ford may well have been the victim of a severe sexual assault by someone 36 years ago,” Whelan wrote in one post. “Her allegations are so vague as to such basic matters as when and where that it is impossible for Judge Kavanaugh to *prove* his innocence.”

He proceeded to lay out a theory that Blasey’s account could alternatively describe a student at Georgetown Prep, where Kavanaugh went to high school, whom Whelan identifies as a friend and football teammate. Using photographs from Georgetown Prep’s yearbook, Google Maps and floor plans of a home that he identifies as that of the classmate, Whelan built a case that details of Blasey’s account fit the classmate’s home.

“If you’re at a gathering of ‘four others’ in someone’s home, you’d ordinarily think that the four others include the host who lives in the home,” Whelan wrote. “And that host would be the person least likely to act like a guest and most likely to use private areas in the house.”

Whelan proceeded to post photos of the classmate and Kavanaugh in high school and more recently, suggesting that their similar appearance could easily confuse someone. He offered no evidence that the house was where the party had taken place other than its proximity to a country club where Blasey said they had gathered before heading to the residence.

At the end of the thread, Whelan then sought to distance himself from his own suggestion, insisting that it did not “state, imply or insinuate” that the man or anyone else assaulted Blasey.

“It is regrettable that private citizens are being drawn into this,” he wrote, blaming the Judiciary Committee for not investigating the matter sooner.

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