An allegation is not self-proving. That is why it is called an allegation.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) September 21, 2018
Part of proving or disproving an allegation is the accused's right to respond to an allegation. There is a long precedent in the United States and society in general for thousands of years that the accuser must go first. The accused gets a chance to respond. Yet the lawyers for Dr. Ford said:
Kavanaugh must testify first, before Ford. This, according to congressional aides, is a non-starter. It's not how the committee works, and given Kavanaugh would need to respond to Ford's testimony, will not occur.
No lawyer interested in the rule of law would make such a demand. This demand lends credence to those who consider it a political circus.
And make no mistakes, Dr. Ford’s lawyers are playing politics with this. Next demand of her lawyers:
No outside counsel to ask questions. Republicans on the committee agreed to hire outside counsel -- a woman, with experience on these issues -- to ask the bulk of the questions at the hearing.
You certainly have the right to pick your own counsel, but the other side's? Moreover this is political decision; she wanted the optics of 11 older white man asking the questions. As Ari Fleischer notes:
The reason Professor Ford's lawyers don't want an outside lawyer to ask questions is because they don't want a woman to be the questioner. They prefer the optics of all male questioners. It shows how politically calculating her lawyers are.
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) September 21, 2018
And everything is politically calculated by her lawyers. What is the difference between testifying Monday and Thursday?
The hearing cannot be on Monday. That's not negotiable and is a red line. Katz proposed this Thursday; it's possible, but not by any means set at this point.
As former Chief Nominations Counsel Gregg Nunziata writes in an Op-Ed subtitled "It’s almost like they would rather delay and disrupt the process for political reasons":
When Senator Dianne Feinstein received very serious allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, she could have—and should have—handled those concerns through the committee’s normal protocols. This process, which applies not just to Supreme Court nominees but to hundreds of judicial and Justice Department appointments, is specifically designed to protect the interests of both accusers and nominees. The process is both confidential and bipartisan. Its goal is to pursue the truth, not political advantage. That Senator Feinstein inexplicably chose not to handle the serious allegation Dr. Christine Blasey Ford made against Judge Kavanaugh according to these procedures has had terrible consequences for all the individuals involved and has done lasting damage to the Senate and the Supreme Court as institutions.
The political debate around the Kavanaugh confirmation has generated a great deal of confusion about the respective roles of the Senate and the FBI in investigating the background of judicial nominees. Here’s how it really works. For every judicial nominee and every nominee for a politically appointed position in the Justice Department, the FBI conducts a “background investigation.” The FBI does not evaluate the nominee’s fitness for service or make a recommendation on his or her suitability for confirmation. It gathers non-public facts, conducts interviews, and compiles a file on the nominee. That file is transmitted to the White House and later the Senate, after a nomination is officially made.
Today Senate Democrats say that the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh require an FBI “investigation,” even though, had they followed standard procedure, the FBI likely would have conducted interviews two months ago. Senate Democrats claim we need the FBI to get to the bottom of these allegations, even though this is not the role of the FBI. The FBI does not assess the character and fitness of nominees, the Senate does. Senate Democrats fret about the possible damage done to Dr. Ford’s reputation in a public, political process (and rightly express concerns about the threats that those in public controversies inevitably receive), even though they had at their disposal a confidential bipartisan process to avoid all of this.
It is a deep shame that Senate Democrats chose to treat these allegations as another tool in their attempts to delay and disrupt Kavanaugh’s confirmation, another ring in the circus of their creation. It didn’t have to be this way. It should never happen again.
It is a tragedy that Dr. Ford’s lawyers and Senate Judiciary Democrats have so politicized the process that it is a political circus that does not do justice for the accused or the accuser.