Dershowitz calls on GOP to postpone Kavanaugh vote until FBI can investigate

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz has called for Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to postpone a vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court until the FBI can investigate claims of sexual misconduct against him.

Dershowitz wrote an opinion piece for Fox News on Thursday after Kavanaugh and one of his three accusers, Christine Blasey Ford, testified before the panel.

He wrote that he thinks it is unlikely there will be a delay, though, because “political truth has replaced scientific truth in our highly partisan age.”

{mosads}Ford was the first of three women to come forward and accuse Kavanaugh of varying degrees of sexual misconduct while in high school or college.

“Accusations as serious as those made by Ford and others against Kavanaugh — which allege he was guilty of criminal conduct — should not stand without clear and convincing evidence of their truth in a nation where the courts presume an accused person is innocent until proven guilty,” Dershowitz wrote. “An FBI investigation might provide more evidence — either favorable or unfavorable to Kavanaugh.”

Senate Republicans announced Thursday night that they would still move forward with a Friday morning committee vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination after hours of testimony from Kavanaugh and Ford.

This vote would pave the way for a vote to end debate on his nomination on Monday in the full Senate and a final vote on Tuesday.

Dershowitz, who is an opinion contributor for The Hill, acknowledged that a Senate vote will likely be made along party lines since Republicans hold a narrow 51-49 majority over Democrats.

The vote “will be based largely on the political dispositions of senators rather than on any desire to arrive at objective truth,” he wrote.

“Realistically, it is unlikely that the Senate will proceed in the manner of a court of law, because political truth has replaced scientific truth in our highly partisan age,” Dershowitz wrote.

Dershowitz, who regularly appears on Fox News and often defends President Trump amid Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation, previously said that Ford needed to be asked “tough questions.”

“A good cross-examining lawyer has to be gender-free, has to raise the same kinds of tough questions about repressed memory and how to reconstruct memory,” Dershowitz said on Tuesday.

“Any woman or man who is afraid to be tough in examining her, or cross-examining him, should not have that job,” Dershowitz added.

After the hours of gripping testimony from Ford and Kavanaugh on Thursday, he wrote that it was “not America’s finest moment.”

Dershowitz warned that Trump may be tempted to nominate an even more conservative replacement for the Supreme Court if Kavanaugh is not confirmed.

“The real danger of the whole Kavanaugh episode — even if he is narrowly confirmed after enduring harsh attacks on his integrity and honesty — will be in the willingness of others to subject themselves to this kind of a painful confirmation process for the Supreme Court and other high-level federal government positions,” Dershowitz wrote.

“The benefit may be to warn young men, especially in this age of the Internet, that what happens in high school and college doesn’t stay in high school and college,” he continued.