President Donald Trump leapt to the defense of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh Sunday after allegations of sexual misconduct that had once threatened to torpedo his nomination to the bench resurfaced.
“He is an innocent man who has been treated HORRIBLY,” Trump said on Twitter, referring to the accusations as “lies.” The president also accused critics of attempting to influence Kavanaugh’s opinions and suggested that Kavanaugh “start suing people for liable, or the Justice Department should come to his rescue.” (Trump apparently meant “libel,” and later re-issued the tweet with the correct spelling of the word.)
Kavanaugh was nominated by Trump after the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, a swing vote on the court. He was sworn in last October after a confirmation process that focused on the allegations — and the protests, controversy and high drama of the Senate hearing that followed.
Trump appeared to be reacting to an opinion-section article written by two New York Times reporters, published late Saturday, whose book on the Kavanaugh nomination will be published this week. In the book, which was summarized in Saturday’s article, the authors wrote that they had found new corroboration for accusations that Kavanaugh exposed himself to Deborah Ramirez, a classmate at Yale.
The book, written by Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, also uncovered a new accusation. Citing two officials, the reporters said that a former Yale classmate told senators and the FBI about a different episode of alleged sexual misconduct.
NBC News has not verified the reporting released Sunday.
Kavanaugh has strongly denied the allegation by Ramirez as well as accusations by Christine Blasey Ford that he sexually assaulted her when the two were in high school.
“During his Senate testimony, Mr. Kavanaugh said that if the incident Ms. Ramirez described had occurred, it would have been ‘the talk of campus’,” the reporters wrote in the New York Times article. “Our reporting suggests that it was.”
Kavanaugh told the Senate Judiciary Committee under oath that the first time he heard of Ramirez’s allegation was in a Sept. 23 article in The New Yorker.
But according to text messages obtained last year by NBC News, in the days leading up to Ramirez’ public allegation Kavanaugh and his team were communicating behind the scenes with friends to refute the claim.
The FBI opened an expanded background investigation into Kavanaugh after pressure from Democrats in Congress initially delayed his confirmation process.
But dozens of people with potential information into the allegations against him were not contacted, according to multiple sources that include friends of both the nominee and his accusers.
Several members of the Senate Judiciary Commitee on Sunday spoke out about the new reporting, including Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who called for Kavanaugh to be impeached.
“I sat through those hearings,” Harris, a Democratic presidential candidate, tweeted. “Brett Kavanaugh lied to the U.S. Senate and most importantly to the American people. He was put on the Court through a sham process and his place on the Court is an insult to the pursuit of truth and justice. He must be impeached.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., called Kavanaugh’s confirmation process a “sham.”
“I strongly opposed him based on his views on executive power, which will continue to haunt our country, as well as how he behaved, including the allegations that we are hearing more about today,” Klobuchar, also a presidential candidate, told ABC’s “This Week.” “My concern here is that the process was a sham. I don’t think you can look at impeachment hearings without getting the documents. The House would have to get the documents. And the attorney general is shielding documents.”
“If you recall, we were given this moment just a few days every other hour to look at the documents related to other allegations that have been called in on the FBI tip line,” she continued, adding, “I think the whole thing was a sham and that those documents need to be turned over, as well as the documents that the White House hid from his time in the White House Counsel’s Office. All of that needs to come forward to even look at a proceeding like that.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told “This Week” that the new claims amounted to “an amazing level of reporting trying to just really dig up any dirt they can on the guy” adding the “far left” was “trying to smear” Kavanaugh.
“And you know what, I bet you the next Democratic debate, they’ll all be saying impeach Kavanaugh, impeach Trump,” Cruz said. “There’s nobody they don’t want to impeach. And at some point, they just have to let the anger go and recognize that the democratic process actually moves on. And I think it’s time for them to do that.”
Last October, Trump offered Kavanaugh and his family an unusual apology after attending his ceremonial swearing-in.
“On behalf of our nation, I want to apologize to Brett and the entire Kavanaugh family for the terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure,” he said at the time.
Almost a year on, Kavanaugh’s tenure has been largely untroubled by the controversy. But the resurfacing of the allegations led some on social media to call for renewed scrutiny against the judge, seemingly drawing Trump’s ire.
