It’s important to begin this article with the essential information, dropped casually by the accuser in an email to Senator Chris Coons (D-CT):
I can’t say for certain that Judge Kavanaugh was present in the frat house for the event, but he was still at Yale during the time period, attending Yale Law School, and I suspect he may have attended what would have been a big party in the frat’s newly-purchased off-campus house.
Byron York posted the full email to Coons on Twitter.
This could be the big one! Yalie sends Sen. Coons a new Kavanaugh allegation. Coons forwards to Chairman Grassley… pic.twitter.com/5Lu7DLY4We
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 2, 2018
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After such a promising beginning, it’s hard to imagine the FBI being unenthusiastic about this material. Neither the alleger nor, apparently, his witnesses can say that Kavanaugh was even at this party. But it happened at his fraternity’s new house the year after Kavanaugh graduated, and it was shocking.
On a shock scale it’s difficult to say whether this is more shocking, or less, than the allegation that Kavanaugh threw beer at a guy in a bar after a UB40 concert in 1985, and may have thrown ice.
But the accuser, who signs himself Tad Low and says he was at Yale as an undergraduate during Kavanaugh’s years there (1983-87, and 1987-90 at the law school), was disappointed that the FBI wasn’t giving more attention to his information about an event held by Kavanaugh’s fraternity, in 1987 or 1988, at which no evidence was offered that Kavanaugh was present.
The odd thing is that Tad Low, Yale ’88 (see Observer and Daily News links below; see here as well), who was the creator of the 1990s VH1 series Pop-Up Video, seems to have had at one time a different perspective on “shocking.” According to his own account, in an interview with Andrew Goldman of the Observer in May 2000, Mr. Low – born Josiah O. Low IV – went out of his way over a period of years to get kicked out of the Yale Club of New York. Finally, in 2000, he succeeded in at least earning a suspension.
Apparently, it wasn’t these particular activities that did the trick. But Low told Goldman he tried them and others to get the boot from the club.
[I]n 1997, Mr. Low said, he smoked pot on the roof of the club (he was chased by guards, but not apprehended); he received fellatio in its spacious lounge; he even beckoned a club waiter while “hanging brain,” an act that Mr. Low described as displaying one’s testicles through one’s open fly. Nobody noticed.
Finally, in 2000, Low found a prank that would work.
Mr. Low … [saw] … the elite Yale singing group, the Whiffenpoofs, walking into the club in their standard uniform of white ties and tails. This enraged Mr. Low, perhaps because he had auditioned for the Whiffs, as they are known, at the end of his junior year and didn’t get the nod.
“I saw them walking around with their noses in the air, like they were so much better than anyone else there,” Mr. Low said. So he decided to do a little bit of equalizing. Grabbing handfuls of cheese cubes and cauliflower from an appetizer tray, Mr. Low went up to the balcony overlooking the room. While the Whiff’s were in the middle of their final song, “Time After Time” (a late-60’s Whiffenpoof original, not the Cyndi Lauper weeper), Mr. Low unleashed a hard rain of crudités.
Among his other works, Low was also the creator of the FUSE channel series Pants-Off Dance-Off, which debuted in 2006 (sample video here).
On Monday, the New York Times reported Low’s frustration with the FBI, which had seemed to take little interest in his information about — well, not Kavanaugh, really, but about Kavanaugh’s fraternity.
Low also spoke to the NY Daily News, clarifying that he is the Tad Low who was a year behind Kavanaugh at Yale (graduating in 1988), and expressing his continued frustration with the FBI. It appears Low felt it was his civic duty to report the frat party from 30 years ago, even though he had no information that Kavanaugh attended it. He hoped that investigating Kavanaugh’s personal calendars would show that Kavanaugh did attend the frat party, and suggested the FBI make haste in that regard.
He also remained concerned about the shocking nature of what he said he witnessed.
Low steadfastly refused to describe what he saw peeking through a window at the DKE house that night. He said disclosing what he knows could color other people’s memories and make it harder for investigators to corroborate the wild story with other witnesses.
He would only say it was horrible enough that he went the extra mile to proactively call the FBI and invite the scrutiny – and possible penalties – of an FBI interview into his life.
The New York Times is running with the story that the FBI is stonewalling tips on Kavanaugh. “Democrats,” says NYT, “Denounce Limits on F.B.I.’s Kavanaugh Inquiry as a ‘Farce.’”
