CHRISTINE ROSEN: Impeaching the New York Times Kavanaugh Story.

As Pogrebin and Kelly describe, Ramirez and some classmates “had been drinking heavily when, she says, a freshman named Brett Kavanaugh pulled down his pants and thrust his penis at her, prompting her to swat it away and inadvertently touch it. Some of the onlookers, who had been passing around a fake penis earlier in the evening, laughed.” Ramirez didn’t think it was funny and goes on to claim that this single episode scarred her for life. “I had gone through high school, I’m the good girl, and now, in one evening, it was all ripped away,” she told the Times. “By preying upon her in this way, she added, Kavanaugh and his friends ‘make it clear I’m not smart.’”

At the very least this is an overreaction. It’s also probably not true. When Ramirez initially made allegations about Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings, the Times acknowledged that it couldn’t verify the story she was telling. This acknowledgment came after Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer at the New Yorker published a highly speculative bit of rumor-mongering about Kavanaugh based on what Ramirez herself admitted were drunken recollections and “significant gaps in her memories.”

Pogrebin and Kelly imply that the FBI did not thoroughly investigate Ms. Ramirez’s claims. “Ms. Ramirez’s legal team gave the FBI a list of at least 25 individuals who may have had corroborating evidence. But the bureau—in its supplemental background investigation—interviewed none of them, though we learned many of these potential witnesses tried in vain to reach the FBI on their own,” Pogrebin and Kelly claim.

Shameful, from top to bottom. And do read the whole thing.