Posted September 27, 2018, 10:11 am CDT
Now there are last-minute accusations being made that include “crazy stuff” such as gangs, illegitimate children, fights and other “nonsense,” reportedly “breathlessly and often uncritically by the media,” he said.
Kavanaugh labeled the confirmation process “a national disgrace” and a “circus” marked by “grotesque and coordinated character assassination.” The Senate’s constitutional role of advice and consent has fallen by the wayside, he said, having been replaced with “search and destroy.”
Despite the impact of the allegations, Kavanaugh said he won’t be intimidated into withdrawing his nomination. “You may defeat me in the final vote, but you’ll never to get me to quit, never.”
Repeating a statement he has made before, Kavanaugh said he has “never sexually assaulted anyone, not in high school, not in college, not ever.”
Kavanaugh said he doesn’t dispute that Ford may have been assaulted by some person at some time and at some place, but he had no involvement and he wasn’t at the party she described. He said he has no ill will toward Ford and her family, and noted, while appearing ready to cry, that his daughter, Liza, wanted to pray for her.
Kavanaugh also talked about the 1982 calendar he had submitted in an effort to show that his schedule did not include a party like the one described by Ford. Kavanaugh said his father kept detailed calendars that he also used as a kind of diary, and Kavanaugh decided to emulate him.
Kavanaugh didn’t list church on Sundays, he said, just as he didn’t list the times he brushed his teeth. For him, church is like brushing his teeth—it’s automatic, Kavanaugh said.
With her voice breaking at times, Ford detailed her allegations. Ford said the party she attended was a small gathering, and Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were there. When she went upstairs to use a bathroom, she was pushed from behind into a bedroom.
Kavanaugh and Judge locked the door behind them, and turned up the music playing in the background. Ford said she was pushed on the bed and Kavanaugh got on top of her. Kavanaugh was running his hands over her body, grinding into her and trying to take off her swimsuit, she said. She tried to yell, but Kavanaugh put his hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming.
The hand over her mouth terrified her the most, she said. “It was hard for me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me.” Both Kavanaugh and Judge were laughing, and they both seemed to be having a good time, Ford said.
Judge jumped on the bed, and the second time they toppled over, so that Kavanaugh was no longer on top of her, she said. She ran into the bathroom and locked the door. After Kavanaugh and Judge went downstairs, Ford ran down the stairs and out the door.
In questioning that followed, Ford told Feinstein that she has suffered post traumatic stress disorder-type symptoms since the assault that included anxiety and claustrophobia. During a remodeling of her home, she insisted on a second front door.
In the initial years after the assault, Ford said, she struggled academically and had a hard time forming relationships, especially with males.
Under questioning by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Ford said that what stands out about the incident is “the uproarious laughter” between Kavanaugh and Judge during the assault.
Ford told Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., that she is “100 percent” sure that her attacker was Kavanaugh.
The Democrats questioned Ford on their own, while Grassley and other Republicans gave their questioning time of Ford to sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell of Maricopa County, Arizona. Mitchell asked some questions of Kavanaugh, but Republican committee members then took over their own questioning.
Grassley said before Ford’s testimony that Mitchell would lead the questioning to avoid “grandstanding and chaos.” He said his staff had spoken with three people said to be at the party, and all had denied the events, a point Kavanaugh also made in his testimony. Ford’s allegations are not only uncorroborated, they are “refuted,” he said.
After Kavanaugh testified, President Donald Trump
tweeted his support for Kavanaugh’s “powerful, honest, and riveting” testimony and called for the Senate to vote, writing, “Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him.”
See also:
ABA Journal: “Sex crimes prosecutor to question Kavanaugh and Ford”
ABA Journal: “Kavanaugh was ‘physically aggressive’ at parties where gang rapes occurred: 3rd accuser’s affidavit”
ABA Journal: “Yale Law’s Chua, Rubenfeld deny advising Kavanaugh clerk candidates to dress a certain way”
Updates at 10:55 a.m. with comment to Durbin; recasts headline and updates throughout at 4:17 p.m. Updated at 5:38 p.m. with Kavanaugh’s comment to Sen. Hirono and to note that Senate Republicans resumed their own questioning for Kavanaugh. Updated at 8:17 p.m. to state that the committee intends to vote Friday morning and to add President Donald Trump’s tweet. Updated Sept. 28 at 6:06 a.m. with information from the ABA letter.
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