Trump terms allegations against Kavanaugh ‘false’
Democratic presidential candidates have again called for impeachment of US Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh after a new report of sexual misconduct allegations against him surfaced Sunday.
The allegations were reported in a New York Times article that published an excerpt from an upcoming book ‘The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation’ by NYT reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly.
California senator Kamala Harris said that Kavanaugh must be impeached since he “lied to the US Senate and most importantly to the American people”. New Jersey senator Cory Booker also said that he stood “with survivors and countless other Americans in calling for impeachment proceedings to begin”.
Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Beto O’Rourke and Julian Castro, too, were critical of Kavanaugh.
US President Donald Trump, however, came to Kavanaugh’s defence. In a series of tweets, Trump termed the accusations “false” and called for the Justice Department to “come to his rescue”.
FBI didn’t initiate probe despite being informed of the charges
According to the NYT report, Kavanaugh exposed himself in front of a female student during his freshman year at Yale. Max Steier, a former classmate of Kavanaugh and owner of a not-for-profit organisation in Washington, allegedly informed the senators and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about this incident, but no investigation was undertaken by the agency on this.
The Washington Post also reported that it had received information of such an incident last year, but did not publish it since it could not verify the claims from the witness or the victim.
The New Yorker correspondent Jane Mayer shared a letter by Senator Chris Coons where he personally informs the FBI of Steier’s testimony, expecting an investigation, which never happened.
The NYT article is primarily centred on Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaugh’s classmate from Yale, who accused him of sexual harassment last year.
Besides Ramirez, high school classmate of Kavanaugh, Dr Christine Blasey Ford, had accused him of attempted rape and even testified before the Senate during the latter’s federal judge confirmation.
Ramirez, who did not get the same credence as Ford, accused Kavanaugh of pulling down his pants and thrusting his penis at her face at a drunken dormitory party at Yale.
When asked about Ramirez during the hearing, Kavanaugh categorically denied all allegations saying that it would have been the talk of the campus had it been true.
According to Pogrebin and Kelly, it was indeed the talk of the campus.
The NYT report stated, “At least seven people, including Ms Ramirez’s mother, heard about the Yale incident long before Mr Kavanaugh was a federal judge. Two of those people were classmates who learned of it just days after the party occurred, suggesting that it was discussed among students at the time.”
During the hearing, Ramirez’s legal team had submitted a list of 25 names that could have corroborated her allegations. However, the FBI did not follow up on the list.
Criticism for NYT & its clarification
The NYT article was featured in the Sunday Review section of the newspaper rather than the news section and this raised many questions about the credibility of the report.
According to some reports, Pogrebin and Kelly pitched the story to the news section, but NYT refused, saying that “there wasn’t enough juice to warrant a story there, let alone a big page-one treatment”.
There were also concerns raised as to why the reporters withheld such important information until the publication of their book.
The NYT was forced to issue a clarification regarding this, stating that the book was “well-reported” and is a “newsworthy account” that “sheds light in matters of national importance”.
“The excerpt of the book was published in the Sunday Review, a section that includes both news analysis and opinion pieces. The section frequently runs excerpts of books produced by Times reporters,” it added.
An editorial comment was later added explaining that the victim of the latest allegation refused to comment on the same and her friends claim that she does not remember the incident.