#METOO ANGER AS SENATE LOOKS THE OTHER WAY
Donald Trump's controversial nominee Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as a judge of the US Supreme Court, in a major victory for the US President, amid crackling tension, angry ‘Me Too’ protests and high drama on Capitol Hill.
Kavanaugh’s nomination was hit by multiple accusations of sexual misconduct – an echo from his past, when he was in school and college. One of the sexual assault claim was from a woman who said a 17-year-old Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and groped her at a 1982 party, when she was 15.
The Senate gave a razor edge 50-48 vote, nearly along party lines to confirm Kavanaugh, who was then sworn in.
‘‘He's going in looking very good,' President Donald Trump said, a day after Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins offered her stamp of approval and guaranteed the narrowest of victories.
Hours later on Air Force One, he told reporters he is '100 per cent' certain that Christine Blasey Ford, who claimed Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her decades ago, pointed her finger at the wrong man.
Protesters in the Senate gallery, mostly female, were in no mood for good will. They interrupted the vote at several stages, prompting police to remove them.
Vice President Mike Pence, presiding over the vote, demanded order as cries of 'Shame! Shame!' and 'I do not consent!' rang out.
About 1,000 protesters occupied the Capitol steps, some willingly arrested and loaded into police buses. 'Vote them out!' was the most common chant, directed at every Republican who sided with Trump. But Trump derided the protests against Kavanaugh on the steps of the Supreme Court and the Capitol as “phony stuff,” and said it was a misnomer to imply that women were upset
at his confirmation. The partisan political split on Kavanaugh, and its implications for political opportunism, never showed signs of letting. Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke on the floor, addressing the millions watching on TV more than the other 99 senators. 'I share the deep anguish that millions of Americans are experiencing today,' he said. 'But I say to you, my fellow Americans, there is one answer: Vote.'
The Kavanaugh confirmation has played out against the backdrop of a midterm election. The Democrats have promised that if they win the congressional elections in November, they’ll call for a full hearing into the charges.
The bitter nomination fight has also come in the midst of the #MeToo movement, unfolding at the volatile intersection of gender and politics, said the New York Times.
Before Saturday’s vote, one of his accusers, Deborah Ramirez, had said the Judge nominee thrust his genitals in her face during a drunken dormitory party at Yale. “Thirtyfive years ago, the other students in the room chose to laugh and look the other way as sexual violence was perpetrated on me by Brett Kavanaugh,” she wrote.