Perhaps Fox & Friends deserves some tiny bit of credit for not completely ignoring the explosive sexual-misconduct allegation against Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. But throughout the three-hour broadcast Monday morning, the hosts remained deeply skeptical of his accuser’s timing and motivation.
They first reported the story to viewers during the 6 a.m. hour like they were making a hostage video. “We now have the name of an accuser who claims she was assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh when they were in high school,” Brian Kilmeade said, reading from papers in his lap.
“The timing’s fascinating,” he added after they were done reporting the facts. “I mean, out of everything that came out, we had all these hearings, we were covering it live, every network was covering it live, non-stop, six FBI investigations and then the letter comes forward and then the name comes out all in one day.”
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The question of “timing” came up again when Ainsley Earhardt sat down Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce, who has previously argued that only liberals are capable of sexual assault. Bruce referred to Dianne Feinstein’s decision make the allegation by Christine Blasey Ford public as a “Hail Mary pass,” adding, “This was exclusively a political act.”
“It was effectively an attempted political assassination of a character,” Bruce continued. “And it really denigrates what women, what we've tried to do for generations, which is to be taken seriously. And now we see it just as another tool in a tool chest. And for those of us who are survivors of sexual assault, of domestic violence, of violence in general, it really moves us into another arena of being just used and the experiences being used. And that's what, of course, breaks my heart.”
Ford herself chose to come forward and speak to The Washington Post over the weekend, reportedly passing a polygraph test about the incident.
Later on the show, Judge Andrew Napolitano appeared to share his opinion on the case. “Law enforcement would view it very, very skeptically because of the passage of time,” he said. Not only have all statutes of limitation expired, but “memories fade,” Napolitano added, and “her ability to recall detail obviously will be diminished with the passage of time.” But because we are in the #MeToo era, he predicted we will see “another version of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings right before our eyes.”
“Is this some sort of political stunt, some sort of Hail Mary from the left?” Napolitano imagined the Senate Judiciary Committee asking itself. “Or did this actually happen?”
Ironically, it was Kellyanne Conway who was more willing to give Kavanaugh’s accuser the benefit of the doubt when she made one of her frequent appearance on Fox & Friends Monday.
“This woman should not be insulted and she should not be ignored,” Conway said, while at the same time calling Kavanaugh “a man of character and integrity.”
