New York Times authors blame Kavanaugh correction on editing error: ‘There was zero intent to mislead’

The two New York Times reporters who co-authored a controversial essay about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh said Tuesday that “there was zero intent to mislead anyone” on a new incident of sexual misconduct detailed in the story.

“We really tried to look at things from a 360-degree perspective,” Kate Kelly, one of the co-authors, told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Monday night.

The essay was adapted from a forthcoming book by Kelly and Robin Pogrebin titled “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation.” 

The essay published Saturday and the forthcoming book report that a former classmate of Kavanaugh’s named Max Stier said he witnessed the now-justice expose himself and force a female classmate to touch his penis at a dorm party. The Times said it corroborated the story with two other officials who had heard the same report from Stier.

{mosads}A correction to the essay, posted Sunday night, said the woman involved in the alleged incident did not speak to the Times and that her friends say she does not recall that it happened.

The correction has triggered widespread outrage from conservatives, with President Trump seizing on it several times during the past few days to argue that the Times was treating Kavanaugh unfairly. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other GOP lawmakers have echoed Trump’s criticisms.

Pogrebin told O’Donnell the woman’s name and the reference to her not remembering the incident were initially included in the article but were taken out during the editing process.

“I think it was just done in the haste of the editing process,” she said. Kelly added that their hope was that “people will look at the book, which has a much fuller context” about the incident and the allegations.

Another woman, Deborah Ramirez, last year accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself and forcing her to touch him during their freshman year at Yale during the 1983–84 school year.

These allegations became public after Christine Blasey Ford went public with accusations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party when the two were high school students. 

Kavanaugh has vehemently denied all of the allegations, and he declined to answer questions about the new accusation to the Times on Saturday.

He and Ford both testified about the alleged incident from high school during his confirmation process last year.