A woman who accused Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault admitted to congressional investigators she made up her claims to "get attention."
According to a letter sent to Attorney General Jeff Sessions late Friday afternoon, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley referred Judy Munro-Leighton for criminal prosecution and revealed her actions were part of a ploy to take down Kavanaugh's nomination.
From the letter, bolding is mine:
Given her relatively unique name, Committee investigators were able to use open-source research to locate Ms. Munro-Leighton and determine that she: (1) is a left-wing activist; (2) is decades older than Judge Kavanaugh; and (3) lives in neither the Washington DC area nor California, but in Kentucky.
On November 1, 2018, Committee investigators connected with Ms. Munro-Leighton by phone and spoke with her about the sexual-assault allegations against Judge Kavanaugh she had made to the Committee. Under questioning by Committee investigators, Ms. Munro-Leighton admitted, contrary to her prior claims, that she had not been sexually assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh and was not the author of the original “Jane Doe” letter. When directly asked by Committee investigators if she was, as she had claimed, the “Jane Doe” from Oceanside California who had sent the letter to Senator Harris, she admitted: “No, no, no. I did that as a way to grab attention.
She further confessed to Committee investigators that (1) she “just wanted to get attention”; (2) “it was a tactic”; and (3) “that was just a ploy.” She told Committee investigators that she had called Congress multiple times during the Kavanaugh hearing process – including prior to the time Dr. Ford’s allegations surfaced – to oppose his nomination.
Regarding the false sexual-assault allegation she made via her email to the Committee, she said: “I was angry, and I sent it out.” When asked by Committee investigators whether she had ever met Judge Kavanaugh, she said: “Oh Lord, no.”
Grassley has also referred Julie Swetnik, Michael Avanetti and an unnamed man for criminal prosecution after making false claims to congressional investigators.
"The Committee is grateful to citizens who come forward with relevant information in good faith, even if they are not one hundred percent sure about what they know...But when individuals intentionally mislead the Committee, they divert Committee resources during time-sensitive investigations and materially impede our work. Such acts are not only unfair; they are potentially illegal," Grassley wrote. "It is illegal to make materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements to Congressional investigators. It is illegal to obstruct Committee investigations."
