MY BAD

Ed Whelan: I Made a ‘Mistake’ Posting Tweet on Kavanaugh Classmate

After wildly speculative post IDing ex classmate who could have been mistaken for nominee.

An ally of Brett Kavanaugh apologized Friday morning for his wildly speculative claim that the embattled Supreme Court nominee’s sex-assault accuser had confused him with another classmate. “I made an appalling and inexcusable mistake of judgment in posting the tweet thread in a way that identified Kavanaugh’s Georgetown Prep classmate. I take full responsibility for that mistake, and I deeply apologize for it. I realize that does not undo the mistake,” Ed Whelan tweeted Friday morning. Whelan, president of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, publicly shared photos Thursday night on Twitter of a Kavanaugh classmate at Georgetown Prep, an elite Washington, D.C. high school. He also posted information on this alum’s home in high school, as well as the man’s Facebook profile. Whelan theorized that Christine Blasey Ford, who has alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a house party more than 30 years ago, confused the federal jurist with a classmate who looked like him.

Ford told The Washington Post that she hadn’t mixed them up. “I knew them both, and socialized with them,” Ford reportedly said. “There is zero chance that I would confuse them.” Hours after his impromptu defense of Kavanaugh, Whelan denied that he had coordinated with the White House. “I have not communicated at all with [White House counsel] Don McGahn or anyone at the White House,” he told The Washington Post, “or Judge Kavanaugh, about the topic of the Twitter thread.”