GOP Sticks With Kavanaugh Despite 'Phony' New Sexual Misconduct Allegation
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WASHINGTON â Republicans made it clear theyâre pressing forward with a vote on Judge Brett Kavanaughâs nomination to the Supreme Court despite the fact that a second woman has accused him of sexual misconduct.
Deborah Ramirez came forward in an article published by The New Yorker on Sunday and alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when they were students at Yale. The nominee denied the accusation in a Fox News interview Monday evening, maintaining that heâs ânot going anywhere.â
âI know Iâm telling the truth. I know my lifelong record, and Iâm not going to let false accusations drive me out of this process,â Kavanaugh said in an interview alongside his wife, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh.
Top Senate Republicans also dismissed the latest accusation, attacking Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee for withholding information about the alleged incident from their GOP counterparts despite hearing about Ramirezâs story last week.
âThey just wanted it to wind up in the press. Another orchestrated, last-minute hit on the nominee,â Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday in a fiery speech on the Senate floor, vowing to hold a vote on Kavanaughâs nomination no matter what comes out during a scheduled hearing on Thursday with Christine Blasey Ford, the research psychologist who last week accused Kavanaugh of groping her at a high school party while they were both teens.
Ramirez, meanwhile, alleged that Kavanaugh pulled down his pants and thrust his penis in her face at a Yale party during the 1983-84 school year. She says both she and Kavanaugh were intoxicated at the time and that she wasnât entirely sure of her memories. The New Yorker interviewed multiple people who Ramirez said were at the party, but none of them said they could recall such an incident.
Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans pointed to the lack of corroborating witnesses in Ramirezâs story as well as Democratsâ involvement with her coming forward behind the scenes as reasons to dismiss her allegation.
âYouâre always going to have these phony allegations come.... thatâs always the case when you have such an invested situation,â Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) told reporters on Monday when asked if he wanted to see Ramirez testify before the Senate.
When a reporter pressed the Utah Republican to explain how he knew the allegation was âphony,â Hatch simply said, âBecause I know it is, thatâs why.â
Hatch also said he didnât âsee any reasonâ to call Kavanaughâs high school friend Mark Judge to testify before the Senate, despite the fact that The New Yorker reported Sunday that Judgeâs ex-girlfriend once recalled how he and other classmates took turns having sex with a drunken woman in school. Democrats said the latest allegation concerning Judge is even more reason why the FBI ought to reopen a background investigation into Kavanaughâs nomination. Last week, Blasey claimed that Judge was in the room while the now-Supreme Court nominee allegedly groped her â an incident Judge said in a letter he has âno memoryâ of.
Hatch said of the committee vote on Kavanaughâs nomination: âIt ought to be done before the end of this week.â
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another Judiciary Committee member, told reporters he believed that Democrats are âjust taking shots in the darkâ with the latest allegation against Kavanaugh, adding that he is âprepared to move forward with the voteâ on the nomination barring any new incriminating information that may arise at Thursdayâs hearing with Blasey.
Republicans who are considered swing votes on Kavanaughâs nomination similarly didnât appear to find the latest sexual misconduct allegation against him as disqualifying.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told CNN she believes that Senate Judiciary Committee investigators should interview Ramirez. The centrist Republican did not, however, call on Ramirez to testify in public, as she had done with Blasey last week. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), another undecided senator on the nomination, told reporters she didnât know whether Ramirez ought to testify.
Kavanaughâs firm denials on Monday â as well as his unusual decision to address the allegations in a television interview with his wife by his side â also appeared to give Republicans some reassurance about firmly sticking by their nominee despite not yet having heard Blaseyâs testimony and the possibility that more allegations involving Kavanaugh could surface in the future.
âI think part of it is Judge Kavanaughâs resolve,â Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said Monday when asked why top Republicans seemed to have so much faith in the nomineeâs denials. âHe said heâs not going to withdraw, that this is a smear. Heâs staying in this and obviously willing to go out and make his own case even before the hearing.â
The Missouri senator, who is the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, added that GOP leadership believes a vote on Kavanaugh âis something that everybody should be prepared to have a position on in the foreseeable future.â
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.