Trump judicial nominee pressed on past writings on date rape at hearing

WASHINGTON — Senators in both parties Tuesday pressed Neomi Rao — President Donald Trump’s nominee to replace nowJustice Brett Kavanaugh on the federal appeals court in Washington — about her past controversial writings, including about victims of date rape.

Ms. Rao, an advocate for broad presidential power, spent more than a decade as a law professor before she joined the Trump administration in 2017 as the White House’s regulatory czar.

Ms. Rao, 45, faces opposition from civil rights groups and Democratic senators concerned about her work to roll back government regulations and about provocative columns she wrote as a college student.

She also encountered resistance Tuesday from Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa who recently disclosed she was sexually assaulted while in college. Ms. Rao’s writings from the 1990s on date rape “do give me pause,” Ms. Ernst said during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

The senator said she is concerned about the message Ms. Rao’s columns send to young women “about who is to blame” and has not decided whether to back Ms. Rao’s nomination. “I really want to know more,” Ms. Ernst said in an interview.

Ms. Rao told senators she cringes “at some of the language I used” in columns she wrote while at Yale. “I like to think I’ve matured as a thinker, writer and a person ... nobody should blame the victim.”

More than a dozen people, mostly young women, lined up outside the committee room Tuesday wearing black T-shirts with quotes from Ms. Rao’s column on date rape and the message #RejectRao.

The president initially tapped Ms. Rao in November to succeed Justice Kavanaugh.