During her testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ford claimed she was 100 percent certain that it had been Kavanaugh who assaulted her. When asked how she could be so sure after 36 years, she explained, as a psychologist, that trauma can help keep memories vivid and clear. Medically speaking, however, this is only half the answer.
Yes, a traumatic experience is one you are more likely to remember. But it is also one your mind is more likely to distort. Both observational and experimental studies have found that following a traumatic experience, the brain is more likely to commit a “source monitoring error,” i.e. to mix information from different sources.
For instance, if Ford had seen Kavanaugh on the news, and this reminded her of high school and thus her assault, her brain could have convinced her that Kavanaugh had been her assailant. In other words, it would have confused the “source” of Kavanaugh’s image, believing that it remembered him from the party when it actually remembered him from elsewhere. Such confusion is especially common among those suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Remember that although Ford had spoken about the assault with her therapist for 12 years, she had never mentioned Kavanaugh’s name, at least according to the evidence available. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]It’s been suggested that if Kavanaugh has nothing to hide he would be open to such an investigation. It didn’t appear that he himself is opposed per se to such an investigation — he said he would do what the Committee wanted — but he also didn’t say the magic words “open an FBI investigation.”
That aside, there are certainly political and practical reasons for Republican lawmakers not to pursue the FBI option, according to an FBI expert familiar with a Single Scope Background Investigation (SSBI).
Andrew Bringuel, a now-retired FBI Agent Supervisor Instructor and Researcher at the FBI Academy’s Behavioral Science Unit with more than 27 years of experience, told Law&Crime that SSBIs like the one being requested by Democratic lawmakers take a while. The typical one takes 7 months.
“The reason GOP and Kavanaugh might not want an FBI Investigation is because a typical SSBI takes 7 months,” he explained. “Even expedited it may take more than a month or two, which of course drags into the mid-terms.”
Let’s do the math. If an FBI investigation were to be opened today and it took 7 months, that’s the end of April 2019. Well after the mid-terms, and fast approaching 2020.
If it took “more than a month or two,” indeed this drags into the mid-terms, after which time the vote on Kavanaugh might very well be even more in jeopardy. – READ MORE
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