A federal judge has thrown a wrench into an already extraordinarily flimsy NBC News "bombshell" regarding allegations Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh attacked a woman in the nation’s capital 20 years ago.

Judge Dabney Friedrich told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that the claim that Kavanaugh “sexually and aggressively” pushed his girlfriend up against a wall in 1998 is both “absurd” and “offensive.” Friedrich’s input here is especially interesting considering she says that she and the embattled Supreme Court nominee were dating at the time of the supposed attack.

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“I dated Brett Kavanaugh in 1998,” Friedrich, who was appointed U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2017, said in a Sept. 26 statement obtained first by the Daily Caller News Foundation. “To the extent the attached letter is referring to me as the ‘friend who was dating him,’ the allegations it makes are both offensive and absurd.”

“At no time did Brett ever shove me against a wall, including in an ‘aggressive and sexual’ manner,” the federal judge’s statement added. “When we dated, Brett always treated me with the utmost respect and we remain friends to this day. I have never observed (nor am I aware of) Brett acting in a physically inappropriate or aggressive manner toward anyone.”

Her letter came not long after NBC News reported that a fourth accuser had emerged to allege Kavanaugh physically assaulted “a woman he socialized with in the Washington, D.C., area in 1998 while he was inebriated.”

The charge, which was delivered in an anonymously written letter last week to Sen. Cory Gardner’s, R-Colo., office, claimed that, when Kavanaugh was the author of the Starr report, “my daughter (from Boulder Colorado) occasionally socialized with Brett Kavanaugh. She and a group of four (including Kavanaugh met in Washington D.C. bar). Her friend was dating him. When they left the bar (under the influence of alcohol) they were all shocked when Brett Kavanaugh shoved her friend up against the wall very aggressively and sexually.”

“There were at least four witnesses including my daughter. Her friend (still traumatized) called my daughter yesterday (Sept 21, 2018) wondering what to due [sic] about it. They decided to remain anonymous,” the letter concluded.

That’s it. That’s the story NBC saw fit to publish last week, despite that it hinges entirely on an anonymous letter, citing anonymous sources, regarding a supposed assault on an anonymous woman who supposedly wishes to remain anonymous.

And now real live person — in fact, a judge — who says she dated Kavanaugh in 1998 claims the NBC story is total nonsense.

To be fair, it’s possible Kavanaugh dated more than one woman in 1998 (though Friedrich makes it sound as if that’s not the case). It’s also possible that the author of the anonymous letter delivered it to Gardner made a mistake. Or made up a story to hurt the nomination — you know, anonymous allegations are often just lies.

But at least one former girlfriend from the year of the supposed attack has gone on the record saying the story so eagerly reported by NBC News is trash.

And let’s not overlook the fact that the Senate Judiciary Committee had no problem tracking Friedrich down as a former Kavanaugh girlfriend. It's the sort of sleuthing that one would expect from, you know, investigative journalists.

Ahem.