Trump Hammers Feinstein in Front of Raucous Crowd - 'Worst Body Language I've Ever Seen'
At a rally in Wheeling, West Virginia, on Saturday, President Donald Trump blasted California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s behavior during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, saying that she had evinced “the worst body language I’ve ever seen” when asked about whether she leaked Christine Blasey Ford’s letter.
Trump was in Wheeling to support state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, the Republican challenger to Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin this November.
While the November election factored heavily in Trump’s speech, he also delivered strong support for Kavanaugh and hammered Feinstein over how she handled the issue of who leaked the letter containing Ford’s accusation that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her some time in the early 1980s. (Kavanaugh has repeatedly, emphatically denied the accusation.)
“When you look at releases and leaks, and then they say, ‘Oh, I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it,'” Trump told the audience.
“Remember Dianne Feinstein,” he said, eliciting a shower of boos from the audience.
“Did you leak? Remember her answer. Did you leak the document? ‘Uh, what? No, uh, no, I didn’t leak. Well, wait one minute. Did we leak? Oh, oh. No, we didn’t leak,'” he continued, shaking his hands for effect.
“I’ll tell you what, that was really bad body language,” Trump continued. “Maybe she didn’t do it, but that was the worst body language I’ve ever seen.”
That wasn’t quite Feinstein’s exact reaction, although the president’s interpretation charitably left out the part where the senator lamed Christine Blasey Ford’s friends.
“I was given some information by a woman who was very much afraid, who asked that it be held confidential, and I held it confidential until she decided that she would come forward,” Feinstein said during the hearings.
When asked directly whether her staff leaked it, she responded, “I have not asked that question directly, but I do not believe — the answer is no. The staff, they did not.”
Later, Feinstein said that “(i)t’s my understanding that her story was leaked before the letter became public, and she testified that she had spoken to her friends about it and it’s most likely that that’s how the story leaked, and she had been asked by press.”
That’s actually contradicted by the original report in The Intercept, which made it clear the information likely came from Democrat sources in Congress. Either way, since we’re judging body language so much these days — particularly if getting angry over being accused of being a rapist is a tell that you’ve done something wrong, a popular theory among Democrats these past few days — judging Feinstein’s body language is certainly appropriate.
Trump also used the speech to deliver support for his nominee.
“A vote to confirm Kavanaugh is a vote to confirm one of the most accomplished legal minds of our time,” Trump told the audience.
The president also made clear that the midterms were crucial to his agenda.
“We are just five weeks away from one of the most important congressional elections in our lifetimes,” Trump said. “This one of the big — in other words, that’s true I’m not running, but I’m really running.”
He added that the Democrats are “determined to take back power by using any means necessary. You see the meanness, the nastiness, they don’t care who they hurt, who they have to run over in order to get power and control.”
That’s something that would be difficult to deny. Just ask Brett Kavanaugh — or for that matter, Christine Blasey Ford’s friends.
Both the judge and Ford’s close acquaintances can lay claim to having been thrown under the many buses departing the Dianne Feinstein terminal. I can guarantee they won’t be the last individuals to experience that kind of treatment before Nov. 6.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
