Kavanaugh pleads ‘victim’ after rape testimony
Washington – Fighting to salvage his US Supreme Court nomination, Brett Kavanaugh angrily denied a university professor’s accusation that he sexually assaulted her 36 years ago in a day of dramatic testimony that gripped the country.
Christine Blasey Ford, her voice sometimes cracking with emotion, appeared in public for the first time to detail her allegation against Kavanaugh, a conservative federal appeals court judge chosen by President Donald Trump for a lifetime job on the top US court.
Ford told the Senate Judiciary Committee she feared Kavanaugh would rape and accidentally kill her during the alleged assault in 1982, when both were high school students in Maryland.
She said she was “100% certain” it was Kavanaugh who assaulted her.
Kavanaugh testified after Ford finished her appearance, claiming he was the victim of “grotesque and obvious character assassination” orchestrated by Senate Democrats. He said he “unequivocally and categorically” denied Ford’s allegation and vowed he would not back down.
“I will not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process,” Kavanaugh said.
Although they were never in the hearing room together, the clash pitted his word against hers.
The almost nine hours of intensely emotional testimony came against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and assault .
Ford has emerged in the eyes of many American women as a compelling figure in the #MeToo movement that is usually associated more with a list of high-profile men accused of misconduct. The Senate, controlled 51-49 by Trump’s fellow Republicans, must now decide whether to vote to confirm Kavanaugh after the extraordinary nearly ninehour hearing.
Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California, said over four hours of testimony that a drunken Kavanaugh attacked her and tried to remove her clothing at a gathering of teenagers when he was 17 years old and she was 15.
For his part, Kavanaugh testified he was “100% certain” none of the alleged incidents of sexual misconduct occurred.