Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp said she was leaning toward voting to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh until he engaged in a “jaw-dropping” exchange…
Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp said she was leaning toward voting to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh until he engaged in a “jaw-dropping” exchange with a senator on the Judiciary Committee over his drinking behavior while in high school.
“When this nominee was announced I had a completely open mind. Had a chance to meet him. In fact I liked him,” Heitkamp said on CBS’ “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired Sunday. “I had a chance to begin to review his judicial record and there was really nothing at that point that I believe was disqualifying for him to serve.”
Heitkamp, who’s running for reelection in North Dakota where President Trump trounced Hillary Clinton by 36 percentage points, said she could understand why Kavanaugh would be angry about the sexual misconduct allegations.
“But as the questioning went on, and really at the point that he had his interaction with Amy Klobuchar, it was jaw-dropping for me,” she said.
During the Judiciary Committee hearing, Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, asked Kavanaugh about the allegations that he drank until he blacked out in high school.
“I don’t know. Have you?” he asked Klobuchar.
That was a turning point for Heitkamp .
“I have a responsibility not only to find somebody academically and intellectually qualified, but qualified by temperament, impartiality and by … empathy,” she said.
But a Republican colleague, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, voted to confirm Kavanaugh and made a 40-minute speech on the Senate floor on Saturday explaining why.
She told CBS that while Christine Blasey Ford, who said a drunken Kavanaugh groped her during a high school party in 1982, believed she was sexually assaulted — it wasn’t by Kavanaugh.
“She was clearly terrified, traumatized and I believed that a sexual assault had happened to her What I think she is mistaken about is who the perpetrator was,” Collins said. “I do not believe her assailant was Brett Kavanaugh.”
Both read the report written by the FBI after conducting an additional background investigation into the nominee.
“I did. But I didn’t find the information there particularly enlightening,” Heitkamp said.
Collins said nobody interviewed corroborated Ford’s claims.
“Even after the FBI has interviewed everyone whom Dr. Ford has named as present that horrible night that she remembers, every single one of them including her best friend has no recollection of anything like this,” she said.
Heitkamp, who is trailing her challenger in the polls by double-digits, was asked if a vote for Kavanaugh would have been beneficial to her political campaign.
“Because this isn’t about politics. This is about a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court,” she said. “And I’m not gonna be the person who makes a decision based on whether I get six more years in Washington. I’m going to make the decision based on what think about the institutions.”
The Senate voted to confirm Kavanaugh by 50-48 margin on Saturday.
