[V]ermont’s congressional delegation is urging the Senate Republicans to halt the Supreme Court confirmation process after a third woman made a public accusation of sexual misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh on Wednesday.
The latest allegation came less than 24 hours before Christine Blasey Ford, the first woman to accuse Kavanaugh, is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In a sworn affidavit made public by her lawyer Michael Avenatti, best known for representing adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, Julie Swetnick said that in 1982 she was a victim of a “gang” or “train” rape while Kavanaugh was present at a Washington, D.C., party.
Swetnick, who currently works in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, joins Ford and Deborah Ramirez as women who have come forward with accusations of sexual assault and misconduct against Kavanaugh.
.@SenateGOP can no longer pretend this is a tolerable process. There are mounting extremely serious allegations of sexual assault against Judge Kavanaugh. This rush to confirm must STOP and the FBI called in to fully investigate all of these allegations.
https://t.co/XdiyFhdOBk— Sen. Patrick Leahy (@SenatorLeahy) September 26, 2018
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said on Twitter that Senate Republicans “can no longer pretend this is a tolerable process.”
“There are mounting extremely serious allegations of sexual assault against Judge Kavanaugh. This rush to confirm must STOP and the FBI called in to fully investigate all of these allegations,” he said.
Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., joined Leahy, tweeting that the allegation is “despicable.”
“If the President and Judge Kavanaugh refuse to ask for an FBI investigation of these serious and credible allegations, the nomination should be immediately withdrawn. He simply cannot serve on the highest court in America,” Welch said.
This is despicable. If the President and Judge Kavanaugh refuse to ask for an FBI investigation of these serious and credible allegations, the nomination should be immediately withdrawn. He simply cannot serve on the highest court in America. #vtpoli https://t.co/PSOEyhm1md
— Rep. Peter Welch (@PeterWelch) September 26, 2018
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., concurred with his congressional colleagues, saying President Donald Trump “can withdraw Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination” or “Kavanaugh himself can call for an FBI investigation if he truly believes the allegations are false.”
Trump and Judge Kavanaugh have two options. Trump can withdraw Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination. Or Kavanaugh himself can call for an FBI investigation if he truly believes the allegations are false.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) September 26, 2018
Leahy and the other nine Democratic Judiciary Committee members wrote a letter to committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on Wednesday asking for the confirmation vote to be “immediately cancelled.”
“It would be an unprecedented abuse of power and abdication of our constitutional responsibilities to move forward with this nomination given the concerns about Brett Kavanaugh’s character and actions,” the senators wrote.
Swetnick said in her affidavit that she attended at least 10 parties with Kavanaugh and his high school friend, Mark Judge, who Ford alleged was present when Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her, in the early 1980s.
Ramirez, a former classmate of Kavanaugh’s at Yale, has also leveled allegations of sexual misconduct against the judge. Both she and Ford have called for the FBI to investigate their claims.
Many have drawn comparisons between Ford’s scheduled hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee and Anita Hill’s appearance at 1991 hearings before the same body during the confirmation process for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Only five current senators were present for the Thomas confirmation hearings in 1991: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Grassley; Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who was then a Democrat; and Leahy.
Of those senators, Leahy was the only one to vote against Thomas, who was nominated by Republican President George H.W. Bush.
During the 1991 hearings, Hill said Thomas sexually harassed her while he was her supervisor at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — alleging he repeatedly asked her out on unwanted dates and described graphic pornographic films to her.
Leahy has said that he believed Hill’s allegations.
During the hearings, he asked Hill to describe her accusations at length and detail her personal reaction to them.
“Tell us how you felt when this happened,” Leahy asked Hill during a hearing on Oct. 12, 1991.
“Well, I was really really upset. I felt like my job could be taken away or at least threatened,” Hill said. “It was threatening in terms of my job, but it was also just unpleasant and something that I didn’t want to have to deal with.”
While Democrats held a majority in the Senate at the time, Thomas was confirmed 52-48 in spite of Hill’s testimony. Now, Leahy says the Senate has the chance to do the “right thing.”
“I think this moment, is a moment for the Senate to do the right thing, not just Democrats,” Leahy said in an interview this week on the Circus, a show produced by Showtime.
“The Republicans are making the mistake of trying to rush this through when it shouldn’t be rushed. We’re talking about a lifetime appointment.”
In her written testimony, released by the Judiciary Committee Monday, Ford says that while at a party in 1982, Kavanaugh pushed her onto a bed and got on top of her, trying to take off her clothes. Another boy, Mark Judge, was also in the room.
“I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from screaming,” she wrote.
“It was hard for me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me. Both Brett and Mark were drunkenly laughing during the attack.”
Soon after Swetnick’s allegations were made public, the committee released Kavanaugh’s written testimony ahead of Thursday’s hearing.
In the testimony, Kavanaugh denies the allegations and said they are nothing more than “last-minute smears.”
Kavanaugh reiterated what he said in a Fox News interview, that he spent most of high school “focused on academics, sports, church, and service” but he admits in the testimony that he did consume alcohol and is uncomfortable with some of his actions from that time.
“I was not perfect in those days, just as I am not perfect today. I drank beer with my friends, usually on weekends. Sometimes I had too many. In retrospect, I said and did things in high school that make me cringe now,” Kavanaugh plans to tell the committee tomorrow.
In spite of these allegations, the Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a confirmation vote on Kavanaugh for Friday and McConnell said he expects the nominee will have enough votes to be confirmed by the Senate before the November midterms.
“We’re going to be moving forward. I’m confident we’re going to win, confident that he’ll be confirmed in the very near future,” McConnell said on Tuesday.
