New accusation rocks Kavanaugh nomination
Trump claims allegation of sexual misconduct is ‘totally political’
President Donald Trump staunchly defended his embattled Supreme Court nominee against a new allegation of sexual misconduct Monday, calling the accusations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh “totally political.”
The president spoke a day after a second allegation emerged against Kavanaugh, a development that further imperiled his nomination to the Supreme Court, forced the White House and Senate Republicans onto the defensive and fueled calls from Democrats to postpone further action on his confirmation.
Trump, at the United Nations for his second General Assembly meeting, called the allegations unfair and unsubstantiated, made by accusers who come “out of the woodwork.” He also questioned the political motivations of the attorneys representing the women, saying “you should look into the lawyers doing the representation.”
On Kavanaugh, Trump stressed: “I am with him all the way.”
The new accusation landed late Sunday in a report from The New Yorker, just a few hours after negotiators had reached an agreement to hold an extraordinary public hearing Thursday for Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who accuses him of sexually assaulting her at a party when they were teenagers. Kavanaugh denies the accusation.
Presidential counsellor Kellyanne Conway told CBS on Monday that the accusations against Kavanaugh sound like “a vast leftwing conspiracy,” using rhetoric that echoed Hillary Clinton’s 1998 description of allegations that her husband, President Bill Clinton, had had affairs.
Trump is suggesting the timing of the New Yorker article is further evidence of what he has been saying privately for days: that the Democrats and media are conspiring to undermine his pick.
The second claim against Kavanaugh dates to the 1983-84 academic year, which was his first at Yale University. Deborah Ramirez described the incident after being contacted by The New Yorker magazine. She recalled that Kavanaugh exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.
In a statement provided by the White House, Kavanaugh said the event “did not happen” and that the allegation was “a smear, plain and simple.”
However, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, called for the “immediate postponement” of any further action on Kavanaugh’s nomination.
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee said they would investigate Ramirez’s accusation. Taylor Foy, a Judiciary spokesman, complained that Democrats “actively withheld information” from the Republicans. He said they appear “more interested in a political takedown” than a bipartisan process.