Top U.S. court nominee hopes to refute sex-assault claim before Senate panel
WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh said Monday he is willing to speak to a Senate panel to “refute” an allegation he sexually assaulted a woman while in high school, after his accuser said via her lawyer that she was ready to testify in public.
Kavanaugh released a statement calling the allegation “completely false” and saying he “had no idea who was making this accusation until she identified herself” on Sunday to the Washington Post.
“I am willing to talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee in any way the committee deems appropriate to refute this false allegation, from 36 years ago, and defend my integrity,” Kavanaugh said.
Kavanaugh was seen arriving at the White House late Monday morning. There was no immediate explanation of the reason for his visit.
He had been on a smooth confirmation track, but the new allegations have roiled that process. Republican senators have expressed concern over a woman’s private-turned-public allegation that a drunken Kavanaugh groped her and tried to take off her clothes at a party when they were teenagers.
Debra Katz, the lawyer for the woman, Christine Blasey Ford, said her client considered the incident to be an attempted rape.
“She believes that if were not for the severe intoxication of Brett Kavanaugh, she would have been raped,” Katz told NBC’s Today.
Kavanaugh, 53, “categorically and unequivocally” denied the allegations when they came out anonymously last week.
“This has not changed,” said White House spokesman Kerri Kupec on Monday. “Judge Kavanaugh and the White House both stand by that statement.”
Still, White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway said of Ford: “She should not be insulted. She should not be ignored. She should testify under oath and she should do it on Capitol Hill.”
In morning television interviews, Katz said her client was willing to tell her story in public to the judiciary panel, although no lawmakers or their aides had yet contacted her. Katz also denied that Ford, a Democrat, is politically motivated.
“No one in their right mind regardless of their motives would want to inject themselves into this process and face the kind of violation that she will be subjected to by those who want this nominee to go though. … She was quite reluctant to come forward.”
Initially the sexual misconduct allegation was conveyed in a private letter, without revealing Ford’s name. With a name and disturbing details, the accusation raised the prospect of congressional Republicans defending Trump’s nominee ahead of midterm elections featuring an unprecedented number of female candidates and informed in part by the #MeToo movement.
Ford told the Post that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed at a Maryland party in the early 1980s, clumsily tried to remove her clothing and put his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream.
She said Kavanaugh and a friend — both “stumbling drunk,” she says — corralled her in a bedroom when she was around 15 and Kavanaugh was about 17. She said Kavanaugh groped her over her clothes, grinded his body against hers and tried to take off her onepiece swimsuit and the outfit she wore over it.
Kavanaugh covered her mouth with his hand when she tried to scream, she said, but she managed to escape when the friend, Mark Judge, jumped on them.