On Oct. 5, weeks after the first unverified allegation of sexual abuse came out against Brett Kavanaugh, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced she would vote to confirm the conservative judge to the Supreme Court.
The Senate voted to confirm Kavanaugh the next day, Collins’ vote clinching him the necessary support.
Because she was one of a handful of moderate senators whose votes would decide whether the judge would be seated on the court, Collins was targeted for vicious harassment by anti-Kavanaugh activists even before her October Senate address. Though contemporaneous news accounts suggested that the targeting of Collins was bad, it looks like it was far worse than anything that was reported at the time.
On Thursday, the senator went into detail, describing what it was like being one of two female senators (the other being Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska) whose votes decided whether Brett Kavanaugh would be the next Supreme Court Justice.
“It was unlike anything I have seen in all the years that I’ve been privilege to serve in the Senate,” Collins told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum. “There was an envelope that arrived a few days after the ricin envelop and letter that had white powder in it. And fortunately the postal service inspector did a great job at intercepting it. And you have to treat everything like that seriously. It said, ‘Anthrax; ha, ha, ha.’ … My husband and our dog and parts of our house had to be quarantine.”
She continued, adding that “hazmat teams [were] brought in. But what was even worse was what was done to my staff. They had to be subjected to all sorts of abuse. A 25-year-old case worker on my staff who deals with social security problems and the VA and immigration answered a call in which the man told her that if I voted yes for Justice Kavanaugh that he hoped that she would be raped and impregnated.”
Because nothing says I oppose Brett Kavanaugh because he’s an alleged sexual abuser quite like wishing rape on a low-level Senate staffer. That staffer, by the way, is no longer with Collins’ office. She quit because she “just could not take the tremendous abuse that was heaped upon them,” the senator said.
Then there was the stalking.
“There was a night I was working very late on the Kavanaugh nomination. I drove myself at 9:30 at night,” the senator recalled. “Couldn’t find a parking space, had to park a block away and there was a man who had been waiting there for me in the pouring rain and dark. I look around the streets, there’s nobody else out.”
She added, “And he follows me to my house, starts screaming at me, shines a flashlight in my eyes. Turns on a cam recorder and it was – it was frightening. The only funny thing about it when I finally said to him as I’m frantically trying to unlock my door, and I said ‘you stop harassing me. And by the way, what’s your name?’ And he gave me his name. So the police we’re able to pick him up.”
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Department did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
Following the Oct. 6 confirmation of Kavanaugh, the harassment continued. More than 1,500 alumni and faculty at the senator’s alma mater signed a petition in mid-October demanding the university revoke her two honorary degrees.
