President Trump defended Justice Brett Kavanaugh against sexual assault allegations, telling reporters that he was certain his accuser Christine Blasey Ford named the wrong person…
President Trump defended Justice Brett Kavanaugh against sexual assault allegations, telling reporters that he was certain his accuser Christine Blasey Ford named the wrong person in a hearing last week in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Ford identified Kavanaugh as the person who she says sexually assaulted her at a high school party in 1982, which Kavanaugh denied.
The president made the remarks on Air Force One on the way to Kansas for a campaign event.
“I’m a hundred percent. I’m a hundred percent. I have no doubt. The FBI has done an excellent job. They went through and they went through it seven times. The FBI went through seven investigations and they did a very thorough job, excellent job. And you know the other thing we know about life: if there were any problems it would have happened over the last 25 or 30 years during his professional life,” the president said referencing background checks Kavanaugh has gone through during his judicial career.
“If there was even a scintilla of something wrong – he was a very big judge for years, on what they call the second highest court. That would have come out loud and clear. This is – one of the reasons I chose him is because there is nobody with a squeaky-clean past like Brett Kavanaugh. He is an outstanding person and I’m very honored to have chosen him and he will be there for many years,” the president added.
Kavanaugh served as a judge on the D. C. Circuit Court before being sworn in Saturday as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.
Two other women, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, also went public with allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh. The then-nominee issued a fiery denial of the accusations at the hearing last week, calling them planned “smears” as part of the Democrats’ “revenge on behalf of the Clintons.”
“We’re very honored that he was able to withstand this horrible, horrible attack by the Democrats. It’s a horrible attack that nobody should have to go through,” Trump echoed today.
The FBI conducted an investigation into the three women’s allegations and returned a private report to the Senate on Thursday, which Republicans said offered no corroborating evidence for any of the accusations and Democrats said was too limited in its scope.
“Women were outraged at what happened to Brett Kavanaugh, outraged, and I think that’s a total misnomer because the women, I feel, were in many ways stronger than the men in his favor. So you have a lot of women that are extremely happy. A tremendous number of women. Because they’re thinking of their sons, they’re thinking of their husbands and their brothers, their uncles, and others. And women are I think extremely happy,” he added.
Trump, who himself has been accused of sexual misconduct by over a dozen women, has slammed the “Me too generation” and suggested that many sexual assault claims are fictitious.
“It’s a very scary time for young men in America, when you can be guilty of something that you may not be guilty of,” he told reporters earlier this week.
Kavanaugh was sworn in after the Senate confirmed him by a 50-48 margin, the tightest margin for a Supreme Court nominee in over a century.
“We’re very happy about it. Great decision. I very much appreciate those 50 great votes. And I think he’s going to go down as a totally brilliant Supreme Court justice for many years. Many years. He was chosen for the reason of his temperament, his incredible past, his outstanding years on the court. He just had an outstanding record. A brilliant scholar—totally brilliant scholar. Top,” Trump said.
