Kavanaugh’s friend apparently did swear under penalty of perjury.
It was a letter to the committee, not a sworn affidavit. There are no penalties for lying in a simple letter, regardless of the identity of the addressee. Well, okay, there’s wire fraud, but you know what I mean.
EDIT: Looks like Judge’s letter included some text at the end about “I do this under penalty of felony” which I guess sounded more formal to him or something, but it’s not a legally meaningful statement. And if he consulted a lawyer (he did in general, but not sure about this particular text), he’d know that. There’s no penalty.
Ford’s friend recalls no such party, not sure why that would change.
Under penalty of perjury, lots of people change their tune. And with a skilled interviewer, useful minor corroborating facts can still be gleaned even from reluctant witnesses, ones that might have been intentionally or accidentally left out of a sworn affidavit.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve read that Ford never named Kavanaugh until his nomination. By degrees, that’s very late in the game. I think her husband says she used his name with him, but apparently not in front of the therapist. She only claimed an assault previously. It doesn’t corroborate her specific claims terribly well. Certainly, we’d want something more than that.
I think you just corrected yourself a few sentences later, so I’ll just let that go. But yes, trauma victims remember some things explicitly and some things for crap, that’s the whole hippocampus discussion again, and it’s extremely common for sexual assault victims to delay reporting. And usually that’s where it begins and ends… when there aren’t other witnesses to help fill in gaps.
I have no idea if Gorsuch did something inappropriate in high school.
I’m sure he did do something inappriopriate… but I doubt he did something criminal. We’re not talking about whoopie cushions under the headmaster’s cushion here.
It does appear that Gorsuch was a more buttoned-up young man.
He could have been a drummer for a Death Metal band. It’s not about how many piercings he had, it’s if he violated any laws. Buttoned-up young men are no less likely to commit crime than any other young men. But they might not be caught as much.
EDIT: And don’t forget the Democrats filibustered Gorsuch, which is less than “sailing.” I guess he was so bad that it’s good they didn’t hold off on filibustering, eh?
Filibustering is sailing when it’s toothless. The point of filibustering is to express extreme political difference, not as a means of investigating criminal acts–if you want to do the latter, a hearing is a good place to start. So the Dems effectively said they disagreed very strongly with Gorsuch’s politics and gave no indication he committed any crimes. That’s not really a surprise.