Kellyanne: I’ve also been a sex-assault vic
Shock reveal in Brett’s defense
White House adviser Kellyanne Conway on Sunday revealed that she has been the victim of sexual assault, as she defended US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh against allegations of similar misconduct.
“I feel very empathetic, frankly, for victims of sexual assault, sexual harassment and rape,” Conway said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
She then paused and, looking slightly shaken, added, “I’m a victim of sexual assault.
“I don’t expect Judge Kavanaugh or Jake Tapper or Jeff Flake or anybody to be held responsible for that,’’ the counselor to President Trump added, referring to the show’s host and the Republican senator from Arizona who helped convince the president to open an FBI investigation into the claims against his court nominee.
“You have to be responsible for your own conduct,’’ Conway said without elaborating.
But she later brought up Flake being confronted by two sexual-assault victims as he headed to the Senate hearing on Kavanaugh, an experience he has said helped him decide to push for the FBI probe. Flake had announced his decision to vote for Kavanaugh but moments after the elevator incident asked the Senate panel to delay a floor vote for a week.
“This is all partisan politics . . . I want those women who were sexually assaulted . . . who were confronting Jeff Flake, God bless them, but go blame the perpetrator,’’ Conway said.
Both Tapper and Conway seemed to be caught off-guard by her revelation that she had been sexually assaulted.
“This is the first time I have ever heard you talk about something personal like that. And I’m really sorry,” Tapper said.
Conway responded, “Well, I have just had it. I have just had it with it all being the same.”
She spoke four days after Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony at the Senate Judiciary Committee, when the college professor accused Kavanaugh of pinning her to a bed and groping her during a high-school party in 1982.
Conway said it was a confirmation hearing, “not a criminal or civil proceeding.
“And let me say also it’s not a meeting of the #MeToo movement,” she said.
At one point, Conway was asked by Tapper about the numerous accusations against her boss and Trump’s own admission that his accusers’ claims have affected how he gauges the allegations against Kavanaugh.
“Don’t conflate that with this, and certainly don’t conflate it with what happened to me. It would be a huge mistake, Jake,” she warned. “Let’s not always bring Trump into everything that happens in this universe. That’s mistake No. 1.”
Conway also lashed out at people comparing Kavanaugh’s alleged behavior with that of comedian Bill Cosby, who was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison last week for sexually assaulting a woman amid yearslong claims from dozens of accusers.
“This is not Bill Cosby. Those comparisons I hear on your network are a disgrace, and the anchor should have called them out. This is not even Bill Clinton,” she added, referring to the former president’s affair with intern Monica Lewinsky in the 1990s. “The hypocrisy is ridiculous.”