Normally, when someone is accused of doing something wrong or nefarious, the accusers have evidence to back up their charges.  Such accusations can damage a person's job, family, reputation, and future.  Laws exist to protect the accused from libel and slander.  Taking accusations farther, the accused is entitled to confront the accuser and whatever evidence the accuser may or may not have.

For the accused to be considered guilty of such accusations, the evidence must convince a jury of one's peers "beyond a reasonable doubt."  If there is reasonable doubt, then the accused is pronounced not guilty.  Granted, this is in a court of law, but the standard should be applied beyond a courtroom.

The president, in charge of the executive branch of government, including the FBI and Department of Justice, is the chief legal officer of the United States.  The Senate Judiciary Committee, composed of elected senators with law degrees, oversees the appointment of judges to the nation's courts.

Is it too much to assume that these branches of government should adhere to the judicial tenets of those they oversee?  Or themselves be held to those standards?  Yet in the age of Trump, we are seeing anything but.

Let's start with the accusation that Trump colluded with the Russians to hack the election and defeat the otherwise inevitable election victor, Hillary Clinton.  A bogus and still unproven accusation, this was meant to distract and cover up the Obama administration's unethical and illegal subversive activities.  The accusers' first goal was to rig the election in favor of Mrs. Clinton.  Then, having failed, they tried to disrupt the Trump transition.

When that too failed, the task was to undermine a duly elected president, leading to resignation or impeachment – all using the immense powers of the federal judicial and intelligence services.

It was all based on manufactured evidence, such as feeding false information to low-level aides Page and Papadopoulos, then "discovering" the planted information and obtaining FISA warrants to spy not only on those individuals, but also anyone within two degrees of separation, meaning the entire Trump campaign and administration.  They leaked false stories to the media, who dutifully publish the leaks, attributing anonymous sources and using such news reports to justify the FISA warrant requests and renewals.

To this day, there is no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion.  The entire premise of a special counsel is bogus.  With no crime to investigate, as required by special counsel statute, Robert Mueller was appointed anyway to invent a crime against President Trump.  Even high-level insider Lisa Page acknowledged the lack of evidence at the time of Mueller's appointment.  John Solomon, writing in The Hill reported, "After nine months of using some of the most awesome surveillance powers afforded to U.S. intelligence, the FBI still had not made a case connecting Trump or his campaign to Russia's election meddling."

All they had was the accusation, or "j'accuse." This has become the new legal standard for the left: simply make an accusation with the stipulation that the accused prove his innocence, not that the accuser prove guilt.

If Russian collusion wasn't enough, now it is Judge Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation battle falling under the j'accuse legal standard.  On the eve of his confirmation vote, Democrat senators and a creepy porn lawyer have pulled an "October surprise" a few weeks early.

Judge Kavanaugh, by all accounts, is a "Boy Scout" – a brilliant jurist, good family man, active in his community, and an ideal choice for the Supreme Court.  But since he believes in the Constitution and adhering to its words, to the left, he is the worst possible type of jurist.

He has had a stellar career on the bench, passing six FBI background checks over the years – six more background checks than any of his accusers has had.  If he had been part of a rape gang, as is being alleged, one would think an FBI background check would reveal that.  Such a background check means talking to friends, family, acquaintances, teachers, and the like.  Surely, someone would have heard about "rape trains" if they were happening regularly at his high school parties.

Never mind, though: it's the accusation that's important.  J'accuse.

One woman after another is trotted out by Democrat activist attorneys, bristling with indignation and empty accusations.  But all are lacking something crucial: evidence.  They don't know the details surrounding their accusations.  There are no witnesses.  Their only "corroboration" is someone corroborating that they made the accusation, not anything Kavanaugh did or didn't do.  Evidence, schmevidence.

I've heard plenty of people accuse Obama of being a Muslim born in Kenya.  I can "corroborate" that these people made such an accusation, but the crucial difference is that I can't corroborate the veracity of their accusation.  That's the Kavanaugh accusers' "corroboration."

Kavanaugh has, in the course of a week, gone from being a high school groper to the ringleader of a high school rape gang.  I attended my share of high school parties back in the day, in a similar socio-economic town to that where a young Brett Kavanaugh attended high school.  Monday morning brought plenty of talk of the weekend parties, but never did I hear about anything remotely close to rape.

I also went to school with some smart kids like Brett Kavanaugh who went off to Ivy League schools.  Nerdy, yes; silly at times, yes; too much to drink on occasion, yes.  But this was also the crowd that was intimidated by girls who were better-looking and more sophisticated than the nerdy boys.  A successful night for us nerds was hanging out with a girl and talking for a while, not rape trains, something beyond even imagination.

Regardless of my experiences, it strains credulity that Brett Kavanaugh was anything other than what he said he was in his contrite and tearful Fox News interview earlier this week.  That matters little, however, in the age of j'accuse.

The deplorable left thinks nothing of ruining a good man, his family, and his career over leftist political objectives – just as leftists have been trying to destroy the Trump presidency, hampering his ability to carry out his agenda as promised to the American people.

Both are hoaxes – Russian collusion and Kavanaugh as Harvey Weinstein.  Evidence be damned, it's the accusation that's important and all that matters.  Are there any decent human beings in the U.S. Senate willing to call out this destructive scorched-earth tactic as despicable?

A few senators are speaking up, but most are silent.  Where are the Republicans?  Where are the NeverTrumps?  Is their hatred of Trump and his Supreme Court nominee greater than their decency?  Where is the chief justice?  It's his court, and it's his nominee who is being treated as a serial killer.

Where are the media?  Basic journalism requires learning the who, what, where, when, and why before reporting.  Instead, we have sophomoric so-called journalists repeating the latest salacious accusations, regardless of accuracy, civility, or decency.  Is this j'accuse standard what we want for our friends, families, and country?  Remember this on November 6.

Brian C Joondeph, M.D., MPS is a Denver-based physician and writer.  Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.