As he prepared to hold a ceremonial swearing-in of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Trump dismissed sexual misconduct accusations as “fabricated.”
ORLANDO, Fla. — President Trump went further on Monday than he has before in dismissing sexual misconduct allegations against Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh as the creation of political opponents, calling them “a hoax” and “fabricated.”
With Justice Kavanaugh now confirmed and sworn in, Mr. Trump moved beyond simply questioning the credibility of his accusers to asserting that their stories were made up entirely. Last week he mocked the main accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, for gaps in her memory but did not explicitly suggest that her account was invented.
Mr. Trump made his comments in response to questions about House Democrats who have talked about impeaching Justice Kavanaugh after the midterm elections in four weeks. “So I’ve been hearing that now they’re thinking about impeaching a brilliant jurist, a man that did nothing wrong, a man that was caught up in a hoax that was set up by the Democrats, using the Democrats’ lawyers, and now they want to impeach him,” Mr. Trump told reporters.
Speaking at the White House shortly before flying to Orlando to address the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the president said that would be “an insult to the American people” and that voters had come to the conclusion that this was a fraud. Referring to one woman who said she attended high school parties where women were sexually assaulted, Mr. Trump said, “It was all made up, it was fabricated and it’s a disgrace.”
After the speech, Mr. Trump returned to Washington intending to host a televised ceremony at the White House at 7 p.m. marking Justice Kavanaugh’s ascension to the court. Justice Kavanaugh was already sworn in twice over the weekend after his Senate confirmation on a 50 to 48 vote.
Presidents often host another such symbolic swearing-in for the purposes of showing off their Supreme Court appointees. But in doing so in a prime evening hour, Mr. Trump appears intent on bannering his success in confirming Justice Kavanaugh in an even more prominent way to rally conservative voters in next month’s midterm elections.
While Democrats have asserted that Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation will benefit them in the Nov. 6 elections because of outrage among women and other voters, Mr. Trump showed on Monday that he plans to go on offense, taking the issue to the electorate to tap into anger on the other side at what he portrays as a political smear.
When he boasted about Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the police chiefs in Orlando, they applauded enthusiastically. The president extolled Justice Kavanaugh’s education and career and said he had told his nominee that “this is going to be a piece of cake getting you confirmed,” then smiled at the misguided prediction.
“It was very unfair what happened to him,” Mr. Trump went on. “False charges, false accusations. Horrible statements that were totally untrue.” He added: “It was a disgraceful situation brought about by people who are evil. And he toughed it out. We all toughed it out together.”
Dr. Blasey, 51, a psychology professor in California, testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that during a small high school party in the early 1980s, a drunken Justice Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, groped her, tried to take off her clothes and covered her mouth when she screamed. Deborah Ramirez, 53, a Yale University classmate of Justice Kavanaugh’s, told the F. B. I. that he exposed his genitals to her during a dormitory party.
Justice Kavanaugh, 53, denied those allegations, and no witnesses came forward to say they witnessed the acts or that they talked with Dr. Blasey or Ms. Ramirez about the episodes at the time. Dr. Blasey passed a polygraph test administered by a former F. B. I. agent hired by her lawyers and many Republicans at first said that she seemed “very credible,” as Mr. Trump himself put it.
But the president has increasingly pivoted away from just attacking Democrats for exploiting the accusers to attacking the accusers themselves. Mr. Trump has himself been accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen women and he said during the confirmation battle that his experience made him more empathetic to Justice Kavanaugh.
While his appearance before the annual gathering of police chiefs was not formally a campaign event, Mr. Trump used the event to depict himself as a friend of law enforcement and said he was working to combat crime.
“We are turning that tide around very rapidly,” he said. “We are taking back our streets.”
As he has before, he said he would send federal authorities to help Chicago fight crime and urged the city to adopt more aggressive tactics, like the so-called stop-and-frisk policy used in New York. “Stop and frisk works,” Mr. Trump said. “The crime spree is a terrible blight on that city and we’ll do everything possible to get it done.”
New York began cutting back on its street stops in 2011 even before a judge ruled in 2013 that the city’s wholesale use of search practices violated the Constitution. Such stops have plummeted, but violent crime continued to fall even without them. Seven major felonies measured by the city police are down 9.7 percent since 2011, even as the stop-and-frisk practices were drastically reduced.
Mr. Trump has a fraught relationship with other elements of the American law enforcement establishment, repeatedly assailing the leadership of the F. B. I. and the Justice Department in connection with the investigation into his campaign ties to Russia.
As his former lawyer and former campaign chairman were prosecuted, Mr. Trump complained that the authorities should not be allowed to pressure criminal defendants into “flipping” on others with the threat of long prison sentences. He has also said that prosecutors should not have indicted two Republican congressmen because it could cost his party seats in the House.
The president made no mention of those criticisms in his talk with the police chiefs on Monday, but instead criticized politicians who do not support law enforcement, saying they “make life easier for criminals and more dangerous for law abiding citizens.
