President Donald Trump and Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his swearing-in ceremony at the White House in Washington, October 8, 2018. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)President Donald Trump defended Brett Kavanaugh on Sunday after the New York Times reported fresh revelations about the Supreme Court justice’s alleged behavior as a student at Yale University in the 1980s. “Such lies about him,” Trump said of the newspaper’s report in two early-morning Twitter messages. “Brett Kavanaugh should start suing people for libel, or the Justice Department should come to his rescue.”
The Times wrote Saturday about lewd behavior attributed to Kavanaugh while at Yale, including more details of an alleged incident that had come to light during his 2018 confirmation process and a second alleged incident of sexual assault at a party.
The report describes allegations from a fellow Yale student that Kavanaugh had pulled down his pants at a drunken party and “thrust” his penis at her, causing her to “swat it away.”
Kavanaugh declined to answer the newspaper’s questions on the latest claims. The two reporters of the article have just released a book on Kavanaugh. The new allegations reopened a debate about whether Kavanaugh, 54, was properly vetted in 2018 after being nominated by Trump to a lifetime position on the top U.S. court.
In a statement late Sunday, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called for an investigation of the FBI’s 2018 background check of Kavanaugh as well as of the allegations leveled against him.
Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro said earlier on Twitter that “it’s more clear than ever that Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath” and that he should be impeached.
Castro also said Congress should review “the failure of the Department of Justice to properly investigate the matter.”
But Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Senate Judiciary Committee member who opposed Kavanaugh, said it’s premature to talk about impeachment until documents that were withheld or couldn’t be fully reviewed before his confirmation are made available.
“My concern here is that the process was a sham,” Klobuchar, also a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “I don’t think you can’t look at impeachment hearings without getting the documents.”
Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz, another member of the Judiciary Committee, dismissed the new allegations as an effort to “just really dig up any dirt they can on the guy.” He said on ABC it shows the “obsession” of the far left to “smear” Kavanaugh.
