All ten of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote to President Trump Wednesday asking to postpone Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing scheduled for Thursday until the FBI investigates sexual misconduct allegations against him.
“Judge Kavanaugh is being considered for a promotion. He is asking for a lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court where he will have the opportunity to rule on matters that will impact Americans for decades,” they wrote. “The standard of character and fitness for a position on the nation’s highest court must be higher than this.”
They cite the eleventh hour allegations by Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez, and most recently Julie Swetnick.
“The serious and credible allegations of one woman should have been enough to require a complete investigation by the FBI,” they argue.
“We therefore ask that you immediately direct an FBI investigation or withdraw this nomination,” they concluded.
Swetnick, through her lawyer Michael Avenatti, claims that Kavanaugh engaged “in highly inappropriate conduct, including being overly aggressive with girls and not taking 'no' for an answer." She accuses him of being part of a group of high school guys that spiked the punch at parties and gang raped girls.
Kavanaugh replied that he doesn’t even know Swetnick and that her accusations are “from the Twilight Zone.”
Judge Kavanaugh will be testifying Thursday on Blasey Ford’s allegations that he groped her and pinned her down while he was drunk at a party in high school. The witnesses she initially claimed were present have denied that such an event occurred.
Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate of Kavanuagh, claimed in a New Yorker article published Sunday, that he exposed himself to her at a college party although, The New Yorker acknowledges, she was initially “reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty.”
Kavanaugh denies both of those allegations.
Senate Judiciary committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has said they will move ahead with the hearing Thursday.