Top Grassley Staffer Gives Away the Game: 'Unfazed and Determined' to Confirm Kavanaugh Despite Allegations

There’s new evidence for those arguing that Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican Senator from Iowa who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, is being wholly disingenuous about his desire to get to the bottom of the sexual assault accusation by Christine Blasey Ford against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and it comes in the form of public statements made by one of his top staffers on the committee who said plainly overnight that the goal of the current process is not to get to the truth of the matter, but to make sure Trump’s right-wing nominee is confirmed regardless of the credible allegations.

“Grassley’s process is a sham but I didn’t expect them to broadcast it so openly.”
—Adam Jentleson, former Democratic senate staffer

“Unfazed and determined. We will confirm Judge Kavanaugh,” tweeted Mike Davis, who serves Grassley as the Chief Counsel for Nominations for the SJC, just after 11 PM on Wednesday.

Hours later, betraying any of the public-facing sympathy that GOP lawmakers on the committee have tried to project regarding Ford, Davis said that while he “personally questioned Judge Kavanaugh under penalty of felony and 5 years of imprisonment, if he lies,” he was frustrated that he had yet to hear back from Ford’s attorneys who, he said derisively, “can’t find time between TV appearances to get back to me.”

As Adam Jentleson, former deputy chief of staff to retired Democratic senator Harry Reid, pointed out in reaction to Davis’ pronouncements, “Grassley and his staff are not making a good faith effort to get the facts – they’re on a mission to confirm their boy, no matter what.”

Not only do the comments reveal open hostility towards Ford, Jentleson argued, they also bolster the complaint by many critics who say the entire process has been a bad-faith effort by Republicans.

“Here is Grassley’s Chief Counsel attacking Ford’s camp and confirming he’s the one who questioned Kavanaugh, presumably hours before cheerleading for him on Twitter,” he added. “Grassley’s process is a sham but I didn’t expect them to broadcast it so openly.”