Sen. Kamala Harris claimed that women and men alike publicly approached her and cried following the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Speaking with Rachel Maddow on Monday, Harris agreed with the MSNBC host’s assessment that Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court “feels incredibly damaging” and that it has impacted women, in particular.
“You’re right,” Harris responded. “I mean, listen, after the initial hearings that happened a year ago, the number of women and men who approached me in public places and cried about what this meant to them, because there’s so much about this issue — and I as a prosecutor personally prosecuted sexual assault cases and cases of this general nature — and one of the worst things that happens is that when we are not willing to believe the victim and take them seriously,” Harris said.
Harris and many other Democratic presidential candidates have called for Kavanaugh’s impeachment after a since-corrected New York Times story published a new sexual misconduct allegation against him.
The claim against Kavanaugh came from Max Stier, a Yale University classmate, who said he saw Kavanaugh expose himself and press his genitalia against a female student during a Yale party. Stier said he informed the FBI, but they did not investigate it.
The Times later issued an editor’s note to their story because they “did not include one element of the book’s account regarding an assertion by a Yale classmate that friends of Brett Kavanaugh pushed his penis into the hand of a female student at a drunken dorm party. The book reports that the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident.”
When Harris was asked about the additional details to the story during an interview with NPR, she said it is not uncommon for people who experience traumatizing events to not remember it.
“Well, I would say that the fact that someone doesn’t remember the details of the incident doesn’t mean there’s lack of evidence if there are other witnesses who can establish that the fact occurred. And so I wouldn’t say there’s no evidence,” she said.
