Conservative author Ben Shapiro says Americans who watched Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week got a glimpse of a world where “mere allegations” are enough to destroy a career.
Mr. Shapiro appeared on Fox News Thursday evening to analyze the testimony of Judge Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the psychologist and college professor who claims he tried to rape her while the two were teenagers. At issue was the lack of “corroborative evidence” supplied by the accuser.
“We can’t simply destroy a man’s life and career based on an uncorroborated allegation, no matter how much we have sympathy for the person making the allegation,” Mr. Shapiro, a graduate of Harvard Law School, said. “And there was not one shred of supporting evidence that was brought to back her account.”
Code Pink National Director Ariel Gold countered that, “at what point in history do we start believing women about the problems that we have in this country and in this world with sexual assault?”
“An allegation is not the end of the story,” Mr. Shapiro said shortly afterward. “You can believe the woman and still recognize we must have corroborative evidence before you destroy someone’s life. Otherwise, mere allegations are the end of the story and that’s not a world anyone wants to live in. It’s fascinating to watch so my folks on the left who are deeply concerned most of the time with defendants rights suddenly chuck that all out the window when it comes to a specific type of allegation with a specific type of person being alleged to have committed this particular crime.”
Judge Kavanaugh, President Trump’s top pick for the U.S. Supreme Court, told lawmakers in an impassioned speech that he and his family bear “no ill will” towards his accuser, but that he was never at a party like the one she mentioned and never sexually assaulted anyone.
None of the individuals Ms. Blasey Ford linked to an apartment — at an unspecified time and place in 1982 — have corroborated her claims.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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