President Donald Trump is defending Brett Kavanaugh as a ‘fantastic, fantastic man’ as a second sexual assault charge envelops his Supreme Court nominee.
‘Hopefully, we’ll have a second judge very shortly who is a fantastic, fantastic man, a fantastic talent and intellect,’ Trump told Geraldo Rivera in an interview taped before The New Yorker posted its story on a new charge against Kavanaugh from Deborah Ramirez, who attended Yale with the nominee to the high court.
Ramirez is charging a drunken college-aged Kavanaugh exposing himself in front of her face during a dorm party at Yale.
President Donald Trump defended his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, citing his intelligence and record
Trump’s defense of Brett Kavanaugh came before a second allegation was made against the Supreme Court nominee
Christine Ford is scheduled to testify on Thursday
Kavanaugh denies her allegation but the emergence of a second incident adds more doubt to the chances of him being confirmed to the Supreme Court.
Democrats are already calling for a postponement so the FBI can investigate while the White House is standing behind their nominee.
One of Trump’s defenses of Kavanaugh was his ‘top of the line education.’
‘I think he’s got an outstanding record, very smart, top of the line education, the best student no matter where he went and honestly the best character, unless she can prove otherwise, and we’re going to give her chance to do that,’ he said to Rivera.
Trump also echoed an earlier slam he made against Christine Blasey Ford, suggesting her allegation was suspicious because she did not report it at the time.
‘This went 36 years without a complaint,’ he said in the interview with Rivera, according to The New York Times.
Ford is claiming Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when she was 15 and he was 17 during a teenage party when they were high school students in suburban Washington D.C.
She told The Washington Post she told no one about it at the time, noting she discussed it in 2012 when she and her husband were in therapy.
Trump, in a tweet on Friday, challenged Ford to produce a police report, claiming if the incident was as bad as she said, the authorities would have been notified.
‘I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents,’ Trump tweeted Friday.
‘I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!’
Kavanaugh denies all the allegations against him.
Both he and Ford are set to speak before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday in separate testimony in a showdown now likely to become must-see-TV as the Supreme Court nominee defends himself.
And Trump said both should be listened to.
Christine Blasey (now Ford) and Brett Kavanaugh in their respective high school year books
Trump criticized Christina Ford in a tweet on Friday
‘I want her to have her voice,’ he said. ‘Let her have her voice, let her say whatever she has to say. Let him say what he has to say and that in the end these senators will make a choice.’
Trump also predicted his nominee will get no Democratic votes in the Senate.
‘We’ll get almost no Democrat,’ he said on the ‘Geraldo in Cleveland’ show on WTAM radio. ‘We may get a couple in states where I won by many, many points — you understand that — but we’ll essentially get no Democrat.’
If no Democratic senator supports Kavanaugh, Republicans can only afford to lose one vote with their 51-seat majority. That one loss would cause Vice President Mike Pence to have to break the tie.
Republican Senators Jeff Flake, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Bob Corker are considered the ones to watch for a possible defection.
Originally the White House had hoped to pick up votes from a few Democratic senators running for re-election in states Trump won in 2016.
Three of those senators – Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota – voted for Trump’s first nominee to the Supreme Court Neil Gorsuch.
None of them have said how they will vote for Kavanaugh.
Debbie Ramirez (above), a resident of Colorado, has come forward to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. She says the incident took place during their freshman year at Yale University
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is seeking ‘immediate postponement’ of any further action on Kavanaugh’s nomination
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is seeking ‘immediate postponement’ of any further action on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court amid the latest allegation of sexual misconduct.
She sent a letter late Sunday to GOP Chairman Chuck Grassley after The New Yorker magazine report.
Feinstein also asked Grassley to have the FBI investigate both allegations.
In a story posted Sunday night on its website, The New Yorker reports that the claim dates to the 1983-84 academic year, Kavanaugh’s freshman year at Yale University.
The magazine says Ramirez remembers that Kavanaugh exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.
She told the magazine she only came forward now because she had been drinking during the evening and admits there are ‘gaps in her memory’ when recollecting the story.
In a statement provided by the White House, Kavanaugh denies the event ever happened.
Kavanaugh says the event ‘did not happen’ and that the allegation is ‘a smear, plain and simple.’
A White House spokeswoman adds in a second statement that the allegation is ‘designed to tear down a good man.’