The Senate Judiciary Committee released letters from friends and former high school classmates of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh which support his claim that the reference to "Devil's Triangle" in his yearbook is a drinking game rather than a sexual threesome.
One letter from Kavanaugh's former classmates defended Kavanaugh's description of the term before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week and also explained how the game was played, the Washington Examiner reports.
"'Devil's Triangle' was a drinking game we came up with in high school. It was a variation on the game 'Quarters,'" writes DeLancey Davis, Bernard McCarthy Jr., Paul Murray, and Matthew Quinn in the letter.
"When we played 'Devil's Triangle,' four people sat at a table," they continued. "On the table, three small glasses of beer were arranged next to one another to form a triangle. Each of the four participants took turns being the 'shooter.' The shooter attempted to bounce a quarter into one of the glasses. If the quarter landed in one of the glasses, the person at the table sitting nearest that glass had to drink the beer."
The four classmates said they do not recall the origin of the game's name.
"We do not remember the exact origin of the name, but none of us used the phrase 'Devil's Triangle' in our yearbook to refer to any kind of sexual activity. To us it was just a game with glasses in the shape of a triangle."
In another letter, two men who say they "knew Brett socially back in the '80s and '90s" wrote that they learned the drinking game "Devil's Triangle" from Matthew Quinn while at Boston College. Quinn was a classmate of Kavanaugh who claimed he played the game with friends in high school.
Kavanaugh's explanation of "Devil's Triangle" as a drinking game did not convince Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., RI), who said after last week's hearing, "I don't believe a 'Devil's Triangle' is a drinking game."
James Roche, who shared a two-bedroom unit with Kavanaugh at Yale, has said "Devil's Triangle" referred to a sexual activity. As recently as today, Rep. Ted Lieu (D., Calif.) retweeted a piece in Slate in which Roche contends that "Devil's Triangle" had sexual connotations.
Lieu has previously argued that Kavanaugh has lied about the meaning of the term.
When Kavanaugh lied about Devil's Triangle, it wasn't just a slip of the tongue. He falsely said it was a drinking game. When pressed, he said it was 3 glasses in a triangle. Then he said it's played like a quarters game.
He made up an extended lie under oath.#TuesdayThoughts https://t.co/ck0LXCLh3c
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) October 2, 2018
Multiple journalists have also claimed or implied Kavanaugh misled senators about what "Devil's Triangle" meant.
g) Several of his other responses to Whitehouse about the yearbook are flagrant and obvious lies, especially re: "devil's triangle" and "boofing", although I guess you could say those are drinking-adjacent lies rather than about drinking per se.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 2, 2018
The lies about blacking out, boofing, devil’s triangle, and Renate are all in service of a narrative about his youth that Kavanaugh and the GOP say supports his innocence.
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) October 1, 2018
Writing for The Intercept, Briahna Gray and Camille Baker claimed that "Kavanaugh strained credulity when he argued before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the "Devil’s Triangle"...referred to a drinking game, a definition which, before Thursday, you’d have a hard time finding anywhere. (It actually refers to a sex act involving two men and a woman)."
On Sunday, Brian Stelter, host of CNN's "Reliable Sources," incredulously asked American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp, "Do you really believe that 'Devil's Triangle' was a drinking game? I mean do you really believe those definitions?"