Conservatives keep saying they believe Kavanaugh AND Ford, and Senator Mazie Hirono called out why that’s BS

On October 6th, after a long, hard-fought battle, Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the United States Supreme Court. However, there’s still vocal (and justified) anger over the appointment from many camps, and Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii is among those still speaking out against Kavanaugh—and specifically, the members of the Republican party who are defending him.

As The Washington Post pointed out, several of Kavanaugh’s defenders, like Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Manchin, have said that they believe Ford was, in fact, assaulted by someone, but that she’s mistaken about the identity of her assailant. In a televised speech on October 5th, transcribed by Time, Senator Susan Collins echoed this notion. She reiterated her position in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union on October 7th.

"I believe that she believes what she testified to," Collins told host Dana Bash. "I do believe that she was assaulted. I don’t know by whom, and I’m not certain when, but I do not believe that he was the assailant."

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In the same episode of State of the Union, Hirono fired back at Collins, explaining that her attitude is exactly why so many victims stay silence. “To say that she thinks that Dr. Ford thinks that she was assaulted, what is that? Is she mistaken?” Hirono told Bash.

"She, herself, said that she serves so many survivors from her state and elsewhere," she continued. "All of us have been hearing stories from and accounts from survivors going back many, many years where they kept all these painful, traumatic accounts to themselves. And this is what happens with sexual assault survivors, that they do not come forward."

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Hirono also took issue with the Republican’s claim that Ford’s account of the incident has not been corroborated. The senator noted that Ford told the same story to multiple people and passed a polygraph test. And she pointed out that Kavanaugh’s claims had not been corroborated either.

"There was no corroboration on Brett Kavanaugh’s bald assertion that he didn’t do it, she said, “because the people that the FBI interviewed—which was just a small number of the dozens that they should have interviewed—they all said that they had no recollection. That is hardly what I would call exoneration."

As Hirono told Bash, claiming that you believe a victim believes a mistaken account is not the same as believing them.

This is the exact reason so many survivors stay silent, and the conservative politicians promoting this line of thinking should be ashamed of themselves.