Kavanaugh vows to carry on amid ‘effort to destroy good name’
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh vowed Monday to press forward with his confirmation hearings amid allegations of sexual misconduct that he called “smears, pure and simple.”
In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kavanaugh said he “will not be intimidated into withdrawing,” despite facing “a frenzy to come up with something — anything — that will block this process and a vote on my confirmation from occurring.”
“The coordinated effort to destroy my good name will not drive me out. The vile threats of violence against my family will not drive me out. The last-minute character assassination will not succeed,” he wrote.
Kavanaugh said he looked forward to testifying Thursday against the claim by Christine Blasey Ford that he drunkenly sexually assaulted her during a party when they were both in high school.
Kavanaugh also said a subsequent accusation by Deborah Ramirez that he drunkenly exposed himself during a Yale University dorm party was “another false and uncorroborated accusation from 35 years ago.”
In an interview with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum Monday night, Kavanaugh — who was joined by his wife, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh — said he wanted a “a fair process where I can defend my integrity.”
“I know my lifelong record and I’m not
going to let false accusations drive me out of this process. I have faith in God and I have faith in the fairness of the American people,” he said during the TV appearance.
Kavanaugh said five times that “I have never sexually assaulted anyone” and citing countless times that he just wanted to receive a “fair process.”
The nominee also admitted to being a virgin well into adulthood.
“I did not have sexual intercourse or anything close to sexual intercourse in high school or for many years after,” he said.
He noted that the legal drinking age was 18 when he grew up — not 21, as it is now — and said that “people might have had too many beers on occasion.”
But when asked if he ever woke up with no memory of what happened the night before, Kavanaugh said, “No, that never happened.”
After the interview, President Trump tweeted, “The Democrats are working hard to destroy a wonderful man, and a man who has the potential to be one of our greatest Supreme Court Justices ever, with an array of False Accusations the likes of which have never been seen before!”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had already blasted Democrats Monday, accusing them of throwing “all the mud they could manufacture” to try to derail Kavanaugh’s nomination, saying their “shameful, shameful smear campaign has hit a new low.”
During a fiery speech on the Senate floor, McConnell — who last week predicted the Senate would “plow right through” with Kavanaugh’s confirmation — also said the nominee would get an upor-down vote “in the near future.”
McConnell read from a New York Times report that raised questions about Ramirez’s claims to The New Yorker magazine, shortly after they were published online Sunday night.
The Times said that The New Yorker never confirmed “with other eyewitnesses” that Kavanaugh attended the party in question, and that the Times interviewed “several dozen people” in a vain attempt to find someone with “firsthand knowledge” of what happened.
The paper also said Ramirez contacted former Yale classmates to see if they remembered the alleged incident — and told some she wasn’t sure it was Kavanaugh who exposed himself.
The Times report prompted push-back Monday from the authors of The New Yorker’s report, with lead writer Ronan Farrow saying on Twitter that it was “not accurate” for a Washington Post columnist to have tweeted that the Times “‘declined’ to publish” Ramirez’s claims.
“Their reporter pursued Ramirez aggressively. She declined to participate because she was talking exclusively to The New Yorker,” Farrow wrote.
In Washington, DC, dozens of protesters were arrested while staging a sit-in outside the office of Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) who is undecided on Kavanaugh.