A White House spokesperson said on Sunday that the Trump administration is continuing to stand with Judge Brett Kavanaugh after a woman came forward and described an alleged sexual assault.
In an interview with The Washington Post, a woman named Christine Blasey Ford said that Kavanaugh assaulted her while she was in high school.
The Post reports:
Speaking publicly for the first time, Ford said that one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend — both “stumbling drunk,” Ford alleges — corralled her into a bedroom during a gathering of teenagers at a house in Montgomery County.
While his friend watched, she said, Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed on her back and groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it. When she tried to scream, she said, he put his hand over her mouth.
“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” said Ford, now a 51-year-old research psychologist in northern California. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”
Ford mentioned this assault (without naming Kavanaugh specifically) to a therapist 10 years ago, before Kavanaugh was on the bench. She also submitted to a lie detector test (which is not admissible in court) and passed.
Kavanaugh has denied the he ever took part in an assault on Ford.
“I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation," Kavanaugh said in a statement on Sunday. "I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”
Following Ford's interview with the Post, the White House insisted that administration officials believe Kavanaugh's version of the story.
"[W]e are standing with Judge Kavanaugh’s denial," White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah told Fox News.
Raj Shah to Fox News’ Matt Leach on WaPo story: “... we are standing with Judge Kavanaugh’s denial”
— Samuel Chamberlain (@SChamberlainFOX) September 16, 2018
[Nicole add: Other conservatives have rallied behind Kavanaugh as well, though the question of whether he did the assault seemed less important than the accusation of it.
It appears we've moved to the "who among us hasn't attempted to rape a girl in high school?" defense.
Now that Ford's name is known, it has never been more important for men and women of values to back her up and not allow the MAGA minions to attack her and doxx her.]
UPDATE: Sen. Lindsey Graham kinda sorta calls for a hearing.
UPDATE #2: It's starting to crack.
UPDATE #3: Boston Herald's Kimberly Atkins points out that merely an accusation was all it took for Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski to demand that Al Franken step down from the Senate. But for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land?
UPDATE #4: Bob Corker joins Flake.
UPDATE #5: And now Lisa Murkowski is wavering
