#A liberal result from Amy Coney Barrett and other commentary

The New York Times’ Adam Liptak and others cite Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s opinion in John Doe v. Purdue University as evidence of her “almost uniformly conservative voting record” — absurdly, Jacob Sullum explains at Reason. A female student made sex-abuse claims against her ex months after their breakup, when he reported her suicide attempts to two resident assistants and an adviser. That “ultimately led Purdue . . . to suspend John for a year, forcing him to resign from ROTC and ending his plans for a career in the Navy.” Barrett and two other judges ruled that he could sue over a process that, she wrote, “fell short of what even a high school must provide to a student facing a days-long suspension.” The accuser neither testified nor filed a formal complaint; Purdue didn’t let the accused student’s witnesses testify; two of the three administrators who judged him “candidly stated that they had not read the investigative report.” Says Sullum: If Barrett’s opinion “upholding the due process rights of someone facing sexual-assault charges does not count as a ‘liberal result,’ the term has lost all meaning.”

Russiagate chronicle: Collusion From Other Side

Newly declassified FBI documents reveal that the Trump-Russia investigation boils down to “the liberal inflation of unsubstantiated — indeed, unattributable — rumor into purported probable cause,” reports National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy. “In an effort to depict Donald Trump as if he were in an espionage conspiracy with the Kremlin, the Obama administration used bogus information, from a man the FBI suspected was an actual Russian spy, to brand as a suspected Russian spy a former US naval-intelligence officer who had actually been a CIA informant.” In other words, “the Clinton campaign, and ultimately the Obama administration, colluded with Russians for the purpose of accusing Donald Trump of . . . yes . . . colluding with Russians.”

Religion beat: Believing Catholics Aren’t ‘Nuts’

In 2017, Sen. Dianne Feinstein told Amy Coney Barrett, then up for confirmation to the Seventh Circuit, that the “dogma lives loudly within you.” The accusation showed, notes Charles J. Chaput at First Things, “clearly how some in our political class now view Catholics who are more than merely ‘nominal’ in their faith.” It’s fine if you’re a mere cultural Catholic who occasionally brandishes his rosary beads. “But if you’re the kind of Catholic who seeks to discipline his or her life around Catholic beliefs regarding marriage and family, religious freedom, sex and abortion — well, that’s a different matter.” Then you get smeared as a “nut,” as Bill Maher called Barrett. “In a sane age, these kinds of attacks, more appropriate to a restroom wall than discourse in a nation of laws, would be seen as loathsome.”

FBI watch: Comey’s Credibility Challenge

“Why should anyone believe James Comey?” asks the Washington Examiner’s Byron York. “October Surprise,” a “new book by Washington Post reporter Devlin Barrett,” is a “compelling portrait” of the former FBI director that “casts serious doubt” on his credibility. Focusing on October 2016, when Comey revealed “the FBI had reopened the Hillary Clinton email investigation,” the book has numerous “examples of Justice Department officials believing Comey lied to them.” Indeed, the book says, “at key moments involving the Clinton or Russia cases, Comey’s version of events is starkly at odds with accounts provided by Justice Department officials” — including Loretta Lynch, then attorney general. So why, York wonders, is Comey’s word “untrustworthy concerning his conflict with Lynch but the gold standard concerning his conflict with Trump?”

Conservative: Crickets on Trump’s Taxes

Spectator USA’s Freddy Gray asks: “Is anyone really surprised that Donald Trump’s tax affairs are opaque? Or that he is not as rich as he claims? Is it really all that horrifying that he has for years claimed business losses in order to offset his significant income tax liability?” The answer: “Of course not.” Which is why the Times’ “big Trump tax-files splash on Sunday is therefore something of a flop.” It’s well-reported, sure, “but there is no smoking gun,” and it might just “fade away.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board