Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Sunday that the affidavit from Julie Swetnick, who claims Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was present when she was “gang raped” at a party decades ago, should be examined by the FBI.
Furthermore, he tweeted that her alleged corroborating witnesses should be questioned. “If perjured, there should be consequences,” he concluded.
Swetnick affidavit should be thoroughly investigated by the fbi and her alleged witnesses named and questioned. If perjured, there should be consequences.
— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) September 30, 2018
The FBI is a couple days into its supplemental investigation into the allegations of sexual misconduct levied against Kavanaugh — accusations which he vehemently denies. In its inquiry, limited to a Friday deadline, the FBI has set its sights on interviewing four people: Three potential witnesses to an sexual assault at a 1980s high school party alleged by Christine Blasey Ford, and a third accuser, Deborah Ramirez.
According to reports late Sunday, the FBI has already spoken with Ramirez, and she has provided FBI agents with names of others whom she said could corroborate her account of sexual misconduct at a Yale party.
Dershowitz has taken issue with Swetnick’s claims in particular, as well as her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, who on MSNBC Sunday evening said his client has “many” witnesses and corroborators.
On Fox News Wednesday evening, Dershowitz said Swetnick’s affidavit is “so deeply flawed and so open-ended that any good lawyer, any good defense attorney would be able to tear that apart in 30 seconds.”
As Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Dershowitz predicted that Ford would win the “credibility determination,” adding that “If [Republicans] were smart, they’d call Avenatti’s witness who would fall apart on cross examination.”
In the affidavit, Swetnick said on numerous occasions at parties in the early 1980s she witnessed Kavanaugh and his high school friend Mark Judge “drink excessively and engage in highly inappropriate conduct, including being overly aggressive with girls and not taking ‘No’ for an answer.” She said this conduct included “the fondling and grabbing of girls without their consent.” Swetnick also said she “witnessed efforts” by Kavanaugh, Judge, and others “to become inebriated and disoriented so they could then be ‘gang raped’ in a side room or bedroom by a ‘train’ of numerous boys.” She also said she has a “firm recollection” of boys lined up outside of rooms at these parties “waiting for their ‘turn’ with a girl inside the room,” and that Kavanaugh and Judge were among them.
She also alleged that she became the victim of one these “train” rapes and Kavanaugh and Judge were present.
Swetnick, who said she has had a number of government jobs and security clearances, claims she told two other people, whom she did not name, after the incident. She also said other women told her that Kavanaugh acted this way during “summer months” in Ocean City, Md.
While he said this is the sort of “deeply flawed affidavit” he’d expect from Avenatti, who is representing porn star Stormy Daniels in her legal battle with President Trump, Dershowitz said Wedsnesday he doesn’t think there will be professional consequences for him.
