Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) slammed Democrats on the Senate floor on Monday, saying the last-minute allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is a distraction and that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and other Democrats had handled the matter inappropriately.
President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh in July, and the Senate Judiciary Committee held more than 30 hours of hearings to vet the nominee, including two days questioning of him and hearing from several panels speaking for and against him.
“Now an accusation of 36-year-old misconduct dating back to high school has been brought forward at the last minute in an irregular manner,” McConnell said.
Feinstein is now said to have had a letter from Christine Blasey Ford, now a 51-year-old professor, for weeks and did not bring it up during Kavanaugh’s hearing or in her meeting with the nominee.
In the letter, Ford accuses Kavanaugh of attacking her at a swim party when they were in high school.
“Now at the eleventh hour with committee votes on schedule after Democrats have spent weeks and weeks searching for any possible reason that this nomination should be delayed, now, now they choose to introduce this allegation,” McConnell said.
Kavanaugh has categorically denied the accusation and said he does not know Ford, who at first was represented in a Washington Post article as an “anonymous” accuser but has since revealed her identity.
“I have never done anything like what the accuser describes — to her or to anyone,” Kavanaugh said in a statement released by the White House.
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