PROTESTERS: ‘FULL AND FAIR’ KAVANAUGH INVESTIGATION
Rain-shortened rally lends local voice to U.S. Supreme Court story.
About three WEST PALM BEACH — dozen protesters gathered in front of the FBI’s West Palm Beach office Sunday to demand the agency conduct what they described as a “full and fair” investigation of sexual misconduct allegations leveled against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The rally, scheduled to last two hours but ended after less than one because of rain shower, gave local voice to a nomination controversy that has roiled the nation. “We can’t allow this travesty to happen,” said Eileen Miller, a 73-year-old retiree from Boynton Beach. “We can’t allow someone like Kavanaugh to sit on the Supreme Court.” That was the view shared by all at the rally, where protesters held signs showing their support for the women who have said Kavanaugh assaulted them when he was a young man. Those allegations turned what initially seemed like a smooth path to confirmation for Kavanaugh into an angry, intense political drama that has reopened wounds left by the nomination battle of Clarence Thomas nearly three decades ago. Many of those at the rally said they watched Thursday as Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a California research psychologist, described
for members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee a party in Maryland where she said she was pushed into a room. There, Kavanaugh, then a 17-year-old, attempted to rape her, Ford said. Not long after Ford addressed committee members, Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee, delivered a fiery, angry denunciation of the nomination process, tearing into Democrats whom he said are trying to destroy him for partisan gain. Crying and frequently gulping from a glass of water, Kavanaugh, currently a federal judge in Washington, D.C., again categorically denied the abuse allegations. Kavanaugh’s accusers and Democratic senators who oppose his confirmation called for an FBI investigation of the allegations. Trump and Republican senators who support Kavanaugh said such an investigation was unnecessary. And Kavanaugh, given multiple opportunities to demand a probe, did not call for one. But on Friday, after Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said he would not support Kavanaugh’s confirmation unless the FBI conducted an investigation, Republicans and Trump relented, ordering a review that could last no longer than a week. Opponents of Kavanaugh’s confirmation saw the limited time frame as proof that Kavanaugh’s supporters still don’t want to get to the bottom of the allegations. “This is something they want to just sweep under the rug,” Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, said at the rally Sunday. “The nominee calls this a circus. My question is: Who are the clowns?” Frankel passed around a microphone to others at the rally who denounced Kavanaugh’s nomination and urged continued opposition to it. One of those who spoke, a 70-year-old Boynton Beach retiree, said the controversy was a painful reminder of abuse she suffered at the hands of an older brother. “I feared my brother,” said the woman, who will not be identified by The Palm Beach Post because the newspaper has not verified her allegations. “I was physically abused by my brother. I kept that secret for 55 years.” The woman said Thursday’s committee hearing was especially painful for her. “When (Ford) spoke about the claustrophobia, I felt my chest heaving,” she said. “I started screaming.” Kavanaugh’s later testimony filled her with rage, she said. “I wanted to put my foot through the TV,” she said. “The belligerence, the sneering, it was all so familiar.” The location of Sunday’s rally was picked to put a spotlight on the FBI, but it brought with it an unusual irony: the FBI’s West Palm Beach office is next to the Trump Plaza Office Center. As protesters called for a full investigation, a guard from Weiser Security Services came out to ask them not to rally on the site of the building where the FBI has its offices, 505 Flagler Drive. The guard also asked protesters not to take pictures of themselves that included the building. Approached by a reporter for The Palm Beach Post, the guard would not provide his name or say how he was empowered to tell protesters gathered on a sidewalk what they could photograph. “If they would only go about 200 feet down, they would be in front of the Trump building,” the guard said, adding that he “was given instructions” by supervisors to direct the protesters away from the building. The guard’s admonitions were unheeded. Protesters chanted, held signs and promised to keep up their fight. Minutes later, though, as dark clouds gathered over the Intracoastal and began moving toward shore, the protest ended. Many of the protesters reached their cars just as rain began to fall.