GOP senators rush to back Kavanaugh after sex allegation

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans rushed to the defense of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Sunday after a woman publicly accused him of sexual misconduct decades ago when they were both in high school.

But one Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Flake of Arizona, joined Democrats in calling for a delay in the confirmation process.

The spokesman for the Judiciary Committee Republicans, Taylor Foy, issued a statement vouching for Kavanaugh’s integrity and saying it was “disturbing that these uncorroborated allegations from more than 35 years ago, during high school, would surface on the eve of a committee vote after Democrats sat on them since July.”

The statement signaled that Republicans planned to move ahead and try to confirm Kavanaugh by the end of the month, even as Senate Democrats swiftly called for them to delay a vote to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination.

“For too long, when women have made serious allegations of abuse, they have been ignored. That cannot happen in this case,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Flake agreed. He said the woman, Christine Blasey Ford, “must be heard” and urged the committee not to vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination until it has a chance to hear more from her.

“I’ve made it clear that I’m not comfortable moving ahead with the vote on Thursday if we have not heard her side of the story or explored this further,” said Flake, who is one of the committee’s 21 members. Republicans hold a 11-10 majority on the panel.

Another Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolin, said he’s willing to hear from the woman.

The Washington Post published a story Sunday that included an on-the-record interview with Ford. It marked the first time her identity had been revealed publicly and her first public comments about the allegation.

Kavanaugh “categorically and unequivocally” denied the accusation in a statement.

Foy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the Judiciary Committee still planned to hold a vote to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Senate floor Thursday.

Hours before The Post report was published Sunday, a centrist Democratic senator and two of his Republican colleagues argued that the allegation against Kavanaugh — which at that point was not publicly connected to Ford — should have been raised sooner in the Senate and predicted it would not prevent the chamber from moving forward with Kavanaugh’s nomination.

In televised interviews, Sens. Doug Jones, D-Ala., Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and John Neely Kennedy, R-La., expressed concerns that a letter outlining the allegation that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., received was not shared with fellow lawmakers earlier in Kavanaugh’s nomination process.

Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that now that Ford has shared her story, “it is in the hands of the FBI to conduct an investigation. This should happen before the Senate moves forward on this nominee.”