Peter Alexander, a national correspondent for NBC News, describes himself on Twitter as a “Proud dad” and a “Cubs & Cats fan.” Peter Alexander might well be a prince among men, but he doesn’t know squat about corroboration.
In a pair of tweets out this morning, Alexander announces that “@NBCNews has obtained sworn and signed declarations from 4 people who corroborate Christine Blasey Ford’s claims of sexual assault against Kavanaugh, sent to Senate Cmte.”
He attaches two of those sworn and signed declarations to one email, the other two to a second email. All four appear below. You are free to read them, but in the interests of time I will summarize the content for you.
All four documents identify the signatory by name, include the signatory’s educational credentials, state how long he has known Christine Blasey Ford, and confirm that Ford at some point claimed in the signatory’s presence that Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her.
Here is what Ford’s husband, Russell Ford, writes:
Christine … said that in high school she had been trapped in a room and physically restrained by one boy who was molesting her while another boy watched. She said she was eventually able to escape before she was raped, but that the experience was very traumatic because she felt like had no control and was physically dominated. … I remember her saying that the attacker’s name was Brett Kavanaugh.
So to what precisely does Russell Ford testify in this passage? To hearing his wife’s words and nothing more. In a court of law this testimony would be objected to by opposing counsel and dismissed by a judge as hearsay, the legal definition of which is “the report of another person’s words by a witness, usually disallowed as evidence in a court of law.” Ford was not present in the room when the events he describes took place. He has no idea whether the incident, which reportedly occurred 36 years ago, actually happened and, if it did, whether the perpetrator was Brett Kavanaugh, who has vehemently denied the allegations.
The other three sworn statements make similar claims. None offers any corroboration of Christine Ford’s claims whatsoever.
Defenders of this Democrat-led media circus will point out that this is not a legal proceeding, which is true — this despite their repeated efforts on their part to treat it like one, principally by insisting incessantly on an FBI investigation. Nevertheless, some overlay of jurisprudence is required if the hearing is to extend beyond a he-said, she-said stalemate.
