Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh spoke out publicly regarding the sexual assault allegations against him Monday night, telling Fox News that he had never sexually assaulted anyone, “in high school or otherwise,” and pledging not to withdraw his name from consideration.
“What I know is the truth,” Kavanaugh said. “I want a fair process where I can defend my integrity, and I know I’m telling the truth. I know my lifelong record and I’m not going to let false allegations drive me out of this process. I have faith in God and I have faith in the fairness of the American people.”
In the interview with Martha MacCallum, Kavanaugh, with his wife Ashley beside him, forcefully denied each of the increasingly uncorroborated allegations that have been made against him, from Christine Blasey Ford’s original claim that he had attempted to rape her in high school, to Deborah Ramirez’s accusation made over the weekend that he had exposed himself to her at a college party, to celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti’s accusation Monday that Kavanaugh had helped organize “rape trains” of incapacitated women at high school parties.
“That’s totally false and outrageous, I’ve never done any such thing or known about any such thing. When I was in high school, I went to an all-boys Catholic high school… Yes, there were parties. The drinking age was 18. And yes, the seniors were legal and had beer there. And yes, people might have had too many beers on occasion. And people generally in high school—I think all of us have probably done things we look back on in high school and regret, or cringe a bit. But that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about an allegation of sexual assault. I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone. I did not have sexual intercourse, or anything close to sexual intercourse, in high school or for many years thereafter.”
Kavanaugh was no less unequivocal in his denial of ever even attending the party at which Dr. Ford has alleged he assaulted her: “I was not at the party described. I was not anywhere at any place resembling that in the summer of 1982.”
Kavanaugh opted not to comment on a host of tangential questions to the controversy, from why former acquaintances would have come forward to accuse him now, to whether adults should be held accountable for crimes committed when they were minors, to whether the New Yorker upheld journalistic standards in publishing Ramirez’s accusation Sunday. In each instance, Kavanaugh returned to the same refrain: “All I’m asking for is a fair process where I can be heard.”
Kavanaugh said he spoke to President Trump by phone earlier on Monday, and said he was sure the president was “standing by me.” The Senate Judiciary Committee still plans to hold a vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation later this week.
