[This is worth far more than a simple snip and paste]
Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh was asked privately yesterday about what past girlfriends would say about his conduct, as frenzied Republican officials prepared him for an epic hearing on Monday when he will rebut charges of a drunken sexual assault during high school.
What's happening: A source tells Axios the question about girlfriends was designed to help Kavanaugh's advocates show there was no pattern of conduct similar to the charge by Christine Blasey Ford, a biostatistician and research psychologist in the Bay Area who also is expected to testify Monday.
A Republican source close to the process: "It blew up [on Sunday]. ... Now we've gone back toward reason and looking at facts. Psychologically, we feel a lot better about where we are."
- The momentous announcement from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa): "[T]he Committee will hold a public hearing with Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford," at 10 a.m. Monday in the Hart Senate Office Building.
- "Judge Kavanaugh could nail it and she could be terrible. But here's my fear: This all depends so much on the performances of two people."
- "And that's a lot to have outside your control, and that's not even accounting for the members themselves doing something stupid."
- "It's the circus of it. It's designed for TV, it's not designed for answers. You're just adding a huge element of the unexpected and the unpredictable."
- White House counselor Kellyanne Conway set the tone for the day by saying on "Fox & Friends": "This woman should not be insulted and she should not be ignored."
- "I actually think on this one he understands it's up to Brett to defend himself. I don't think the President's going to take responsibility for that. The President wants him to run his own show; and I think that's because if this was the President, he'd want to run his own show."
- In a reassuring comment for the White House, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a Judiciary Committee member, told Fox News' Sean Hannity that he "will look at everything in Judge Kavanaugh's life, not just this accusation. And I feel good about it."
- The great unknown will be the emotion in the room — and the consequences if her testimony is credible.