Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell condemned the decrease in journalistic standards following a New York Times story that claimed to have evidence proving Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh engaged in sexual misconduct decades ago.
“I’m distressed about the declining journalistic principles so much on display across all of the world of journalism, up to and including of all publications, the New York Times,” McConnell said Tuesday in a briefing with reporters. “It’s a very distressing development.”
McConnell said the Times “ought to be embarrassed” and all reporters “ought to feel badly” about the Kavanaugh story.
The piece was published Saturday night and made new claims relating to old allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh stemming from his teenage years.
One claim included a report by an old classmate who said he witnessed Kavanaugh with his pants down at a party and saw Kavanaugh’s friends push his genitals into the hands of a female partygoer.
The story was updated the next day to include the fact that the woman in question was not interviewed for the story and told friends she does not recall the event described by the former classmate.
The New York Times also omitted the background of that classmate, Max Stier, who served as a defense attorney for President Bill Clinton during his impeachment. Stier at the time was pitted against Kavanaugh, who worked for then-independent counsel Ken Starr.
“I know most of you went to journalism school,” McConnell said. “My guess is the first class you had was about including all of the relevant points on both sides of the argument.”
The article also touted seven people who could corroborate a story by former Yale University classmate Deborah Ramirez involving Kavanaugh, where at another party he allegedly pushed his genitals into her face while she was severely intoxicated.
But none of the seven people were firsthand witnesses, and some never connected the event specifically to Kavanaugh.
The New York Times has stood by the story, and the reporters said they accidentally removed the reference to the woman described in the second sexual misconduct claim who said she did not remember such an incident.
[Read more: Washington Post declined to run New York Times’ Kavanaugh allegation a year ago]
