Third accuser says she saw abuse
WASHINGTON – Julie Swetnick, a client of attorney Michael Avenatti, alleged in a signed statement released Wednesday that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh would drink to excess and “engage in abusive behavior” toward teenage girls while he was in high school.
In a statement released by Avenatti, Swetnick said that in the 1980s, she witnessed efforts by Kavanaugh and his classmate Mark Judge to get teenage girls “inebriated and disoriented so they could then be ‘gang raped’ in a side room or bedroom by a ‘train’ of numerous boys.”
“I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their ‘turn’ with a girl inside the room.
These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh,” she alleged in the statement.
Swetnick alleged she became one of the victims of “one of these ‘gang’ or ‘train’ rapes.” She did not say Kavanaugh or Judge sexually assaulted her.
Swetnick of Washington said she was a graduate of Gaithersburg High School in Maryland.
She holds security clearances for her work with the Treasury Department, U.S. Mint and the IRS.
Kavanaugh called Swetnick’s allegations “ridiculous” in a statement released by the White House on Wednesday. “This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone,” he said. “I don’t know who this is, and this never happened.”
President Donald Trump did not address Swetnick’s allegations, but he did knock her lawyer, Avenatti, in a tweet Wednesday afternoon. Avenatti also represents porn star Stormy Daniels in her lawsuits against Trump.
“Avenatti is a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, like he did on me and like he is now doing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh,” the president tweeted.
In the face of the new allegations against Kavanaugh, the Democrats of the Senate Judiciary Committee called on Trump to either withdraw Kavanaugh’s nomination or to direct the FBI to reopen an investigation into his background.
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a member of the Judiciary Committee, said he still expects the committee to vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination Friday.
“But those of us on the committee have to be prepared for the possibility, indeed the likelihood, that there will be no definitive answers to the very large questions before us,” he said on the Senate floor.
Avenatti said he is waiting for a re- sponse from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, over Swetnick’s allegations. He included emails he exchanged with Grassley’s staff this week.