Trump’s SC nominee Kavanaugh rejects ‘false accusations’
Washington: US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh said on Monday he would not step aside after a second woman accused him of sexual misconduct decades ago, with President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans showing no signs of relenting in their push for his Senate confirmation.
“The truth is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone, in high school or otherwise,” Kavanaugh said in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “The Story with Martha MacCallum,” to air on Monday evening.
The allegations, dating back to the 1980s, have put in jeopardy Kavanaugh’s chances of winning confirmation to the top US court in a Senate narrowly controlled by Trump’s party, with high-stakes congressional elections just weeks away.
Confirmation of the federal appeals court judge to the lifetime job would cement conservative control of the Supreme Court and advance Trump’s goal of moving the high court and the broader federal judiciary to the right.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing for Thursday for Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who last week accused him of sexual assault in 1982.
Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California, said Kavanaugh attacked her and tried to remove her clothing while he was drunk at a party when he was 17 years old and she was 15 when they were high school students in Maryland. “I am not questioning and have not questioned that perhaps Dr. Ford at some point in her life was sexually assaulted by someone at some place, but what I know is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone,” Kavanaugh said in the Fox News interview.
“The truth is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone, in high school or otherwise,” Kavanaugh said in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “The Story with Martha MacCallum,” to air on Monday evening.
The allegations, dating back to the 1980s, have put in jeopardy Kavanaugh’s chances of winning confirmation to the top US court in a Senate narrowly controlled by Trump’s party, with high-stakes congressional elections just weeks away.
Confirmation of the federal appeals court judge to the lifetime job would cement conservative control of the Supreme Court and advance Trump’s goal of moving the high court and the broader federal judiciary to the right.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing for Thursday for Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who last week accused him of sexual assault in 1982.
Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California, said Kavanaugh attacked her and tried to remove her clothing while he was drunk at a party when he was 17 years old and she was 15 when they were high school students in Maryland. “I am not questioning and have not questioned that perhaps Dr. Ford at some point in her life was sexually assaulted by someone at some place, but what I know is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone,” Kavanaugh said in the Fox News interview.