The authors of the widely panned New York Times article about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh have another dubious claim about the judge.
Reporters Kate Kelly and Robin Pogrebrin, who published a “bombshell” allegation against Kavanaugh that had no evidence, have now claimed that Kavanaugh agreed to be interviewed for their upcoming book about him — on the condition that they write that he declined to comment. The claim has been taken up by the liberal media as proof of Kavanaugh’s duplicity as the left reels from the implosion of the anti-Kavanaugh Times article, which quickly fell apart under scrutiny.
“Brett Kavanaugh agreed to talk to @katekelly and @rpogrebin for their book — If they wrote that they didn’t talk to him,” National Press Club president Allison Kodjak tweeted. “The authors — who told the story tonight @PressClubDC, refused and walked away from the interview.”
Journalists claim Kavanaugh asked them to lie
The two journalists have been in the spotlight this week after the Times published an excerpt from their new book, “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation,” last weekend that brought a new allegation of sexual misconduct against the judge. By Monday, the article had become one of the greatest embarrassments in recent journalistic history, as the Times was forced to issue a correction admitting that the allegation was essentially bogus.
The article accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to a female classmate at Yale, but it turned out that the alleged victim didn’t want to be interviewed and her friends said she had no memory of the incident. That information was in the book, but not in the article itself. In an appearance on MSNBC Monday, the two journalists blamed the omission on the editing process.
With the story having done grievous damage to the credibility of the reporters and the Times itself — while making the media’s treatment of Kavanaugh during his nomination look positively malicious — the two journalists came forward with the claim Wednesday that Kavanaugh had backed out of negotiations for an interview. At a National Press Club event to promote their book, the two journalists claimed that Kavanaugh agreed to an interview off the record on one condition: that they said that he didn’t speak with them.
The claim was eagerly taken up by The Washington Post, The Huffington Post and other liberal news outlets still recovering from the mortification dealt to the Times, the mothership in the print media’s fake news armada, by its sham article. But as Beckett Adams at the Washington Examiner points out, the journalists gave two slightly, but significantly, different versions of events.
In speaking to the Press Club, the pair said that only Kavanaugh made the request. But in a follow-up interview with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti of The Hill’s “Rising,” they said that they were negotiating with Kavanaugh and a “representative.” It’s unclear who exactly is being accused here.
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Like the so-called “bombshell” allegation in the Times article, this latest claim could very well be another “shoot first, correct later” hit job to generate publicity. At any rate, the claim that Kavanaugh asked the reporters to lie pales in comparison with the already known dishonesty of their article — and surely, by extension, their book.
In addition to publishing a serious allegation of misconduct without any evidence, the reporters made numerous other significant omissions. Max Stier, the sole alleged witness behind the new allegation, was Bill Clinton’s defense lawyer. It never occurred to the authors to mention that detail. Even more shocking: Pogrebin was Kavanaugh’s classmate at Yale, another minor detail that was left out.
According to The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway, the authors were also misleading in an Atlantic article adapted from their book. They claimed that witnesses of another alleged assault by Kavanaugh on former Yale classmate, Deborah Ramirez, “stayed mum.” But the originally, widely panned New Yorker article about the allegation notes that witnesses specifically said they did not recall the incident.
The New York Times has taken a beating all week long over the Kavanaugh story, as well they should. The media has been totally discredited. They are, as President Trump said to reporters Friday, the “laughing stock of the world.”
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