Kavanaugh Has Bumpy Week Ahead as Two More Women Come Forward
Sen. Dianne Feinstein calls for stop to the confirmation process
Updated 10:25 p.m. | The same day the Senate Judiciary Committee set a hearing about a decadesold allegation of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, more allegations of sexual misdeeds from women in his past emerged to cause more turbulence for Republican efforts to make him a justice.
One woman told The New Yorker in an article Sunday that the federal appeals court judge sexually assaulted her at a college party in the 1980s. Separately, an attorney for another woman said his client had information about Kavanaugh’s behavior at parties at high school parties and wanted to testify as well.
The allegations cause more headaches for Senate Republicans and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who on Friday told the Value Voters Summit in Washington that Kavanaugh would be on the Supreme Court “in the very near future.”
Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley had already bristled at postponing a committee vote on Kavanuagh, but on Sunday, the Iowa Republican agreed to a hearing Thursday to hear from Christine Blasey Ford, who alleges that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her decades ago, when he was a 17-year-old high school student.
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Then, on Sunday evening, The New Yorker reported that Deborah Ramirez, 53, attended Yale College with Kavanaugh and described a party where he “exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.”
At least two Democratic senators are investigating the claim, the New Yorker reported.
“This is another serious, credible, and disturbing allegation against Brett Kavanagh. It should be fully investigated,” Sen. Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii, told the magazine.
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Ramirez is calling for an FBI investigation of her claim.
In a statement to the magazine, Kavanaugh wrote: “This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name — and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building — against these last-minute allegations.”
At about the same time, Michael Avenatti, the lawyer who rose to fame by aggressively taking on President Donald Trump on behalf of his client Stormy Daniels, tweeted that he had another woman with an allegation who will be demanding that Kavanaugh’s nomination be withdrawn.
“I represent a woman with credible information regarding Judge Kavanaugh and Mark Judge. We will be demanding the opportunity to present testimony to the committee and will likewise be demanding that Judge and others be subpoenaed to testify,” Avenatti tweeted. “My client is not Deborah Ramirez.”
My client is not Deborah Ramirez.
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 23, 2018
Within minutes, Senate Judiciary Committee staff sent an email to Avenatti asking for information to promptly start an inquiry. Avenatti responded with a bombshell.
“We are aware of significant evidence of multiple house parties in the Washington, D.C., area during the 1980s” during which Kavanaugh and others “would participate in the targeting of women with alcohol/drugs in order to allow a ‘train’ of men to subsequently gang rape them,” Avenatti wrote.
Avenatti said he would provide additional evidence in the coming days.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the committee’s top Democrat, wrote a letter to Grassley on Sunday asking to stop the confirmation process.
“I also ask that the newest allegations of sexual misconduct be referred to the FBI for investigation, and that you join our request for the White House to direct the FBI to investigate the allegations of Christine Blasey Ford as well as these new claims,” Feinstein said.