Trump senators condemn sex claims mockery
TWO WAVERING Republican senators have lambasted President Donald Trump for mocking a woman who has claimed Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the 1980s.
The response to Mr Trump’s scoffing at Christine Blasey Ford came as politicians awaited results of a revived FBI background check on accusations of sexual misconduct by Mr Kavanaugh in high school and college.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the chamber will vote on Mr Kavanaugh later this week, and the conservative jurist’s fate is in the hands of a handful of undecided Republican and Democratic senators.
At a political rally in Mississippi on Tuesday night, Mr Trump mimicked Ms Ford’s responses at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week at which she recounted Mr Kavanaugh’s alleged attack on her when both were in high school.
The audience laughed as Mr Trump, at times inaccurately, recounted what he described as holes in her evidence. “I had one beer – that’s the only thing I remember,” Mr Trump said.
On NBC’s show on yesterday, Republican Senator Jeff Flake said that ridiculing “something this sensitive at a political rally is just not right”.
Mr Flake added: “I wish he hadn’t done it. It’s kind of appalling.”
Separately, Senator Susan Collins told reporters: “The president’s comments were just plain wrong.”
Mr Trump’s aggressive criticism of Ms Ford seems to reflect the sentiments of some of his conservative supporters.
Prof Ford’s lawyer, Michael Bromwich, described Mr Trump’s words as “a vicious, vile and soulless attack” on her.
Democratic leader Senator Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to denounce Mr Trump’s “outright mockery of a sexual assault survivor.”
But it raises questions about how such words will affect five senators – all moderates – whose votes on Mr Kavanaugh will be decisive.
Besides Mr Flake and Ms Collins, Republican Lisa Murkowski and Democrats Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp have yet to declare their positions on Mr Kavanaugh.
Mr Flake has clashed repeat- edly with Mr Trump over his behaviour and is retiring at the end of the year.
Ms Collins has criticised Mr Trump at times as well but not as often as Mr Flake.
The FBI has finished an interview with Chris Garrett, a high school friend of Mr Kavanaugh.
Mr Garrett’s lawyer, William Sullivan, said Mr Garrett has voluntarily co-operated with the FBI’s reopened background check, but he declined to comment further.
Mr Kavanaugh has denied the accusations by Ms Ford, by Deborah Ramirez, who alleges he exposed himself to her during a college party, and by Julie Swetnick, who has alleged she was victimised at a party attended by Mr Kavanaugh and his friends.