jimnyc
10-02-2018, 12:26 PM
I wish they would all be held accountable in some fashion, those that outright lied and tried to destroy this man and his family.
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Libel? NBC News Manufactures Text Messages Story to Claim Kavanaugh Lied Under Oath
On Monday, NBC News uncritically published a manufactured hit from lawyer Kerry Berchem, who attended Yale at the same time as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and his second sexual assault accuser, Deborah Ramirez. According to NBC News, Berchem has a smoking gun in the Kavanaugh confirmation battle — text messages that prove the nominee lied under oath.
The texts prove no such thing, however. Instead, they merely confirm that Kavanaugh knew that Ramirez planned to go public with accusations against him, and he readied a defense. Indeed, NBC News had to twist the nominee's testimony out of recognition to make it seem like he had lied under oath.
George Hartmann, a spokesman for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), said it best. "The texts from Ms. Berchem do not appear relevant or contradictory to Judge Kavanaugh's testimony," he told NBC News. "This appears to be another last-ditch effort to derail the nomination with baseless innuendo by Democrats who have already decided to vote no."
So what is the "baseless innuendo"? NBC News's Heidi Przybyla and Leigh Ann Caldwell, apparently working off of a document written by Berchem, claimed that text messages between Berchem and Karen Yarasavage — both friends of Kavanaugh — show the nominee was discussing Ramirez's allegations before they broke in The New Yorker on September 23.
Yet Kavanaugh claimed, under oath, that he first heard of Ramirez's allegations "in The New Yorker story."
NBC News also quoted an interview the nominee gave with Republican Judiciary Committee staff on September 25, two days after the Ramirez allegations were reported. The nominee claimed that Ramirez was "calling around to classmates trying to see if they remembered it." This "strikes me as, you know, what is going on here? When someone is calling around to try to refresh other people? Is that what’s going on? What’s going on with that? That doesn’t sound — that doesn’t sound — good to me. It doesn’t sound fair. It doesn’t sound proper. It sounds like an orchestrated hit to take me out."
NBC News's Przybyla and Caldwell included this testimony to make Kavanaugh seem like a hypocrite. They wrote that the nominee "claimed that it was Ramirez who was 'calling around to classmates,'" even though he was doing the same thing.
Even this insinuation is easily debunked, by referencing the very testimony Przybyla and Caldwell quoted. Indeed, the very sentence about "calling around to classmates" comes from this sentence: "The New York Times says as recently as last week, she was calling around to other classmates saying she wasn't sure I had done this." Kavanaugh was referencing the New York Times editorial note explaining why the Times refused to publish the story — they could not back up Ramirez's claims, despite reaching out to would-be witnesses.
As Kavanaugh himself noted, "The New York Times couldn't corroborate this story and found that she was calling around to classmates trying to see if they remembered it."
Since both The New Yorker and The New York Times were reaching out to sources to try to verify the story (for at least a week), it stands to reason they reached out to Kavanaugh, or that the sources they contacted would alert the nominee about forthcoming allegations. Indeed, since Ramirez was contacting former classmates on her story, it seems likely those classmates would also reach out to Kavanaugh.
Rest - https://pjmedia.com/trending/libel-nbc-news-manufactures-text-messages-story-to-claim-kavanaugh-lied-under-oath/
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Libel? NBC News Manufactures Text Messages Story to Claim Kavanaugh Lied Under Oath
On Monday, NBC News uncritically published a manufactured hit from lawyer Kerry Berchem, who attended Yale at the same time as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and his second sexual assault accuser, Deborah Ramirez. According to NBC News, Berchem has a smoking gun in the Kavanaugh confirmation battle — text messages that prove the nominee lied under oath.
The texts prove no such thing, however. Instead, they merely confirm that Kavanaugh knew that Ramirez planned to go public with accusations against him, and he readied a defense. Indeed, NBC News had to twist the nominee's testimony out of recognition to make it seem like he had lied under oath.
George Hartmann, a spokesman for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), said it best. "The texts from Ms. Berchem do not appear relevant or contradictory to Judge Kavanaugh's testimony," he told NBC News. "This appears to be another last-ditch effort to derail the nomination with baseless innuendo by Democrats who have already decided to vote no."
So what is the "baseless innuendo"? NBC News's Heidi Przybyla and Leigh Ann Caldwell, apparently working off of a document written by Berchem, claimed that text messages between Berchem and Karen Yarasavage — both friends of Kavanaugh — show the nominee was discussing Ramirez's allegations before they broke in The New Yorker on September 23.
Yet Kavanaugh claimed, under oath, that he first heard of Ramirez's allegations "in The New Yorker story."
NBC News also quoted an interview the nominee gave with Republican Judiciary Committee staff on September 25, two days after the Ramirez allegations were reported. The nominee claimed that Ramirez was "calling around to classmates trying to see if they remembered it." This "strikes me as, you know, what is going on here? When someone is calling around to try to refresh other people? Is that what’s going on? What’s going on with that? That doesn’t sound — that doesn’t sound — good to me. It doesn’t sound fair. It doesn’t sound proper. It sounds like an orchestrated hit to take me out."
NBC News's Przybyla and Caldwell included this testimony to make Kavanaugh seem like a hypocrite. They wrote that the nominee "claimed that it was Ramirez who was 'calling around to classmates,'" even though he was doing the same thing.
Even this insinuation is easily debunked, by referencing the very testimony Przybyla and Caldwell quoted. Indeed, the very sentence about "calling around to classmates" comes from this sentence: "The New York Times says as recently as last week, she was calling around to other classmates saying she wasn't sure I had done this." Kavanaugh was referencing the New York Times editorial note explaining why the Times refused to publish the story — they could not back up Ramirez's claims, despite reaching out to would-be witnesses.
As Kavanaugh himself noted, "The New York Times couldn't corroborate this story and found that she was calling around to classmates trying to see if they remembered it."
Since both The New Yorker and The New York Times were reaching out to sources to try to verify the story (for at least a week), it stands to reason they reached out to Kavanaugh, or that the sources they contacted would alert the nominee about forthcoming allegations. Indeed, since Ramirez was contacting former classmates on her story, it seems likely those classmates would also reach out to Kavanaugh.
Rest - https://pjmedia.com/trending/libel-nbc-news-manufactures-text-messages-story-to-claim-kavanaugh-lied-under-oath/