Doesn't surprise me one bit that these allegations never came up in the context of a background check for any appointment less than a supreme court appointment, because such appointments are not front page news. Why would these allegations come up in previous background checks, unless the FBI spoke with the accuser directly? I would guess that until now, Kavanaugh's accuser was not following his career, or had any knowledge of background checks on this guy. I would even guess that it would not occur to most non-lawyers that appointees to federal judgeships are subject to background checks, and the need for people in the know to speak up given judges' extraordinary power. Not to mention the volumes of problems with this appointee, without a rape / assault allegation, such as his hypocrisy and habit of letting his political and personal views influence his legal positions, (wildly different positions re: executive privilege depending on who's in office - see - Clinton - Lewinsky, O'Bama, and Trump), I would be surprised to learn that the accuser's allegations are not true. The accuser has zero motivation to make this up, and Kavenaugh has every motivation to lie about this. In fact, I can think of loads of reasons for the accuser to not speak up - she appears to have pretty good life without this. Hopefully: a) Kavenaugh comes to terms with this, admitting he did a terrible and not normal thing, even as a teenager - setting a good example for young people - this is not "boys will be boys" incident, like farting in your sibling's face; b) he gets removed from any consideration as a supreme court pick & gets removed from any federal judgeship; c) and the conservative right leaders grow some balls and morals - stop being afraid of Trump & stop trying to convince themselves that the ends justifies the means, which truly is the beginning of the end of a just and decent society.