The Senate Judiciary Committee will not pause consideration of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, charging ahead with filling the high court vacancy after a decades-old sexual misconduct allegation against Kavanaugh was revealed Friday.
Judiciary Committee spokesman Taylor Foy said the committee will proceed with its vote Thursday on Kavanaugh’s nomination. The contentious battle over his confirmation has been roiled by the allegation detailed by an unidentified woman in a July letter sent to Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif.
The letter has not been made public, and Foy said Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and his staff first became aware of its existence on Wednesday evening from news reports. They did not know of the allegation it contained, he said.
According to the New Yorker, the letter describes an incident that occurred in the early 1980s, when Kavanaugh was a student at Georgetown Preparatory School in Maryland. The woman alleges in the letter that Kavanaugh held her down and tried to force himself on her when they were at a party.
[Related: 65 women defend Kavanaugh after sexual misconduct allegation]
Kavanaugh said in a statement he “categorically” and “unequivocally” denies the allegation.
“I did not do this back in high school or at any time,” he said.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., also received the letter, and the woman, who requested confidentiality, reached out to her office directly, according to the New Yorker.
Feinstein released a statement Thursday revealing she received “information” about Kavanaugh, which was referred to federal authorities. The FBI included the letter in Kavanaugh’s background-investigation file, and the supplemental FBI report was given to the Senate on Thursday, according to Foy.
Foy noted that Kavanaugh has undergone six FBI investigations from 1993 to 2018, as he served in positions with the federal government. No allegation similar to that raised in the letter surfaced in the six reports from the FBI, and no similar allegation was raised to Republicans on the Judiciary Committee or staff, he said.
Foy also said Feinstein’s staff did not bring up the allegation during a follow-up call the committee had with Kavanaugh about his FBI background check last month, and she did not discuss the allegation during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing last week. Additionally, the issue was not raised in the more than 1,270 written questions Kavanaugh received from Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.
In the wake of the sexual misconduct allegation, the Judiciary Committee circulated a letter from 65 women who know Kavanaugh from his high school days.
The women wrote that Kavanaugh has “always treated women with decency and respect.”
Foy said Kavanaugh’s law clerks organized the letter Thursday, and the committee received it Friday morning.
