Facts Matter: Ben Shapiro’s Media Collapse

For the last few weeks the media’s been hysterical over the collapse of The Washington Post. Yet equally noteworthy is the collapse of Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire. Shapiro’s engagement on social media is way down, thanks in part to the hammering he has received from people like Tucker Carlson.

A lot of the rage directed at Shapiro, at least judging by the comments, is pure anti-Semitism. That’s wrong. The real reason to dislike Shapiro is that he’s always been every bit as arrogant as a reporter at The Washington Post. Like them, Shapiro refuses to acknowledge or correct errors.

In a video last year, Shapiro attempted to take down Kamala Harris by exploring her role in the attacks on Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court nomination in 2018. Shapiro made several errors in his video. He claims a woman named “Christina” Blasey Ford came forward in 2018 to accuse SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a party in 1982. She also claimed that I was in the room when Kavanaugh assaulted her. Shapiro says that Blasey Ford “couldn’t name anyone else at the party.” He adds that Blasey Ford claimed that Kavanaugh’s “drunk friends tried to rape her.” Then Shapiro claims that Ford “was reluctant to come forward.”

These are all errors. I know Shapiro may have thought he was helping by making Blasey Ford look like a ditz, but he wound up hurting the truth, which is much more sinister. The plot against Kavanaugh was exactly what Kavanaugh said it was: “a calculated and orchestrated political hit.” They used opposition research, extortion and witness tampering against us. Blasey Ford is no idiot despite the baby girl voice she put on, and neither were her handlers.

First, Ford’s first name is Christine, not Christina. Shapiro got her name wrong.

Second, Ford did name people she claims were at the party. She didn’t claim that a bunch of “drunk fiends” tried to rape her. She said Kavanaugh tried to take her clothes off while another boy was in the room. That other boy, Blasey Ford said, was me. By saying “a bunch of drunk fiends tried to rape her,” Shapiro is conflating Ford’s story with another woman at the time who claimed that Kavanaugh and me were involved in drugging girls and gang rape.

Kamala Harris was working with opposition researchers to set the whole thing up. In the summer of 2018 Harris was photographed at a book party for Ace Smith, the “godfather of opposition research” and a man nicknamed “Dr. Death” for his ability to destroy loves. Smith’s disciple was Michael Avenatti, the lawyer who accused Kavanaugh and me of drugging girls and gang rape. Smith was an official advisor to the Harris campaign. He’s now in jail.

Third: Shapiro argues that Blasey Ford was reluctant to come forward and “wanted to stay private.” Ford was never a reluctant witness. In his book We’ve Got People, Ryan Grim—the journalist who broke and helped spread the news about Ford in the Intercept and no conservative—notes that Blasey Ford took repeated steps to come forward. Grim writes, accurately:

[Ford’s] letter included a request: “As a constituent, I expect that you will maintain this confidential until we have further opportunity to speak.” That line would end top being used repeatedly by Feinstein as she claimed that, in fact, Blasey Ford never wanted to come forward, and was only faced out by the media. But that argument ignored that Blasey Ford had already taken repeated steps to come forward, had already told friends she planned to do so, had already come forward to two congressional offices and reached out to the press, and was only asking for confidentiality until she and Feinstein spoke.

Reading accounts of Ford’s behavior it becomes clear why she never went to the police or released her therapist’s notes (which never mention Brett Kavanaugh) and why she kept asking for delays. She was waiting for me to talk. In the meantime, extortion threats and media pressure would make my life hell. It also traumatized Leland Keyser, Ford’s lifelong friend (now ex-friend). Ford claimed Keyser was at the 1982 party, and Keyser was threatened when she said she had no idea what Ford was talking about. It’s no surprise that Dianne Feinstein and Ford’ own lawyers told Ford to give up the hunt. It’s also why so many of Ford’s ex-friends, including an FBI agent who had been friends with Ford since childhood, will not speak to her.

Ben Shapiro thought he was wrecking Ford by saying see “couldn’t name any of the people at the party.” However, it’s far worse to name people whom you are using and threatening in order to tell fake stories. That’s a plot, that’s extortion, that’s witness tampering. That’s the demonic dark arts of oppo research.

Shapiro got it all wrong. Like The Washington Post, he doesn’t care.