NOMINATION/SUPREME COURT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “At first, the Sunday [9-23-18] night publication of a New Yorker article detailing a new allegation of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh looked like a disaster for the White House. But by Monday [9-24-18] afternoon, President Donald Trump’s aides and allies argued it was not only survivable, but that they could turn an alleged ‘smear’ into a political winner that might help rescue Kavanaugh’s nomination. The judge‘s accusers had overplayed their hand, they insisted of the mounting charges, and revealed the coordinated partisan attack on an honorable man. Trump led the new offensive, telling reporters that the charges ‘could be one of the single most unfair, unjust things to happen to a candidate for anything.” The allegations are ‘starting to feel like a vast left-wing conspiracy,’ counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway told CBS. In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kavanaugh rejected the accusations as ‘smears, pure and simple,’ adding: ‘The last-minute character assassination will not succeed.’ Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell attributed the charges to ‘the resistance.’”
–Christopher Cadelago and Andrew Restuccia, “White House, GOP point to Democratic ‘resistance’ behind Kavanaugh ‘smear’,” Politico, September 24, 2018 10:00 pm