A third woman has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.
Her allegation is so big, and it alleges misconduct by so many people, going back to when Kavanaugh was 17 years old, that she must be able to name at least a dozen witnesses. The credibility of her claim hangs on her ability to do this.
Julie Swetnick, who is being represented by celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti, claims she “witnessed Brett Kavanaugh consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women during the early 1980s.”
She claims she attended multiple parties in the ’80s where high school buddies Kavanaugh and Mark Judge “were present.” She claims she witnessed attempts by Judge and Kavanaugh to get girls “inebriated and disoriented so they could then be ‘gang raped’ in a side room or bedroom by a ‘train’ of numerous boys.” Swetnick also claimed in an affidavit released Wednesday that, “I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their ‘turn’ with a girl inside the room. These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh.”
[Also read: Kavanaugh became ‘aggressive,’ ‘belligerent’ when drinking, says Yale freshman roommate]
Most shockingly, she claimed she “became the victim of one of these ‘gang’ or ‘train’ rapes where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present.”
“Shortly after the incident, I shared what had transpired with at least two other people,” she added. “During the incident, I was incapacitated without my consent and unable to fight off the boys raping me, I believe I was drugged using Quaaludes or something similar placed in what I was drinking.”
Swetnick concludes her affidavit by claiming there are “other witnesses that can attest to the truthfulness of each of the statements above.”
Kavanaugh has totally denied the allegation: “This is ridiculous and from the ‘Twilight Zone,’” he said. “I don’t know who this is, and this never happened.”
Judge’s attorney also told NBC News his client “vehemently denies Ms. Swetnick’s allegations.”
For now, Swetnick and her attorney have offered no proof to support her allegation. However, with an accusation involving dozens of teenaged partygoers, it seems like this allegation should be easy enough to prove or disprove.
If we want to get to the bottom of this, Swetnick will have to provide investigators with the names of anyone else who appeared at these parties, both the alleged perpetrators and their alleged victims (obviously don’t make their names public) of the rape “trains.”
The last word goes to my Washington Examiner colleague Phil Klein, who wrote Wednesday: “It is now impossible that this will resolve without one side of the political spectrum believing a grave injustice was done. The ramifications of this nomination will be felt in our politics for decades to come no matter what the outcome.”
If nothing else, this seems like the surest thing we can say right now about the Kavanaugh fight: that it will do irreparable harm the country.
