The White House is slapping back at claims that a young Brett Kavanaugh would become ‘blackout’ drunk and may not remember improper conduct with new character references from his classmates.
Dan Murphy, a former roommate of Kavanaugh’s at Yale, said he ‘was there with him at the end of the night when we came home, and there in the morning when we got up’ from a night of partying.
‘I never saw Brett black out or not be able to remember the prior evening’s events, nor did I ever see Brett act aggressive, hostile, or in a sexually aggressive manner to women,’ he said.
Another person who claimed to be a close friend of Kavanaugh’s from Yale, Chris Dudley, said that ‘like nearly every other college student we took breaks from school and went out for drinks and to see friends’ but ‘I never ever saw Brett blackout. Not one time.
‘And in all the years I have known him, I have never seen him to be disrespectful or inappropriate with women,’ he said. ‘I would also like to point out that going out never came before working hard and maintaining our focus on our goals.’
The White House is slapping back at claims that a young Brett Kavanaugh would become ‘blackout’ drunk and may not remember improper conduct with new character references from his classmates
Not true, said former Kavanaugh friend Chad Ludington in a public statement that aired after the White House shared statements from two other Yale classmates that contradicted one he gave that sparked claims that the future judge had a serious drinking problem.
‘I have direct, repeated knowledge about Brett’s drinking and his disposition while drunk,’ Ludington said. ‘If he lied about his past actions on national television, and more especially, while speaking under oath in front of the United States Senate, I believe those lies should have consequences.’
Ludington said that Kavanaugh did not tell the truth about the scope of his drinking problem in college when he testified last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
‘I can unequivocally say that in denying the possibility that he ever blacked out from drinking and in downplaying the degree and frequency of his drinking, Brett has not told the truth,’ he said. ‘I felt it was my civic duty to tell of my experience while drinking with Brett, and I offer this statement to the press.’
He said that he has ‘no desire to speak further publicly’ but had contacted the FBI about his charges.
‘I have received the form. I filled it out with the details, but I can’t give those to anybody right now,’ he said.
Ludington said he believes ‘that my probably now ex-friend is lying’ about Kavanaugh’s heavy drinking.
‘I have seen Brett drunk to the point he could easily be passed out,’ he said. ‘No, I never saw him passed out, but I saw him quite drunk. He saw me quite drunk,’ he explained.
President Trump conceded Brett Kavanaugh had difficulty drinking as a young man at a news conference on Monday where he said that even her was surprised by the admission
During the hearing on Thursday, Kavanaugh insisted that he had never blacked out from drinking alcohol. He is pictured on left at his Yale graduation
Even President Donald Trump had to concede that his Supreme Court nominee had ‘difficulty’ with drinking as a young man on Monday as the FBI probed the charges against Kavanaugh, from alleged sexual assault to drugging women, but dismissed that as a possible disqualification for serving on the high court.
He said during a press conference on Monday that he watched Kavanaugh’s testimony before the committee last week and doesn’t think his nominee misled senators about his relationship with alcohol.
‘I watched him. I was surprised at how vocal he was about the fact that he likes beer and that he has a little bit of difficulty. He talked about things that happened when he drinks,’ Trump said.
The president spent the better part of a Rose Garden presser defending his Supreme Court nominee, whose confirmation was in limbo after Republican Sen. Jeff Flake joined Democrats in pushing for an FBI investigation into sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh. Trump gave into the demands and ordered the FBI to look into the accusations on Friday.
Christine Blasey Ford charges that Kavanaugh, when drinking, pinned her to a bed during a high school party in the 1980s, tried to rip her clothes off and covered her mouth when she screamed.
Kavanaugh denies the allegation.
Julie Swetnick says that Kavanaugh’s friends would inebriate women in high school so they could be ‘gang raped’ by a ‘train’ of boys and that Kavanaugh was present at a party where she was allegedly a victim of their tactics.
But Trump argues there have been no recent allegations against Kavanaugh when it comes to his drinking habits or sexual assault claims.
‘But I watched that hearing and I watched that man say he had difficulty as a young man with drink. The one question I didn’t ask was how about the last 20 years. Have you had difficulty in the last 20 years? Because nobody said anything bad about him,’ he said.
‘This is not a man who says that he is perfect with respect to alcohol,’ he added.
Trump, whose brother Fred Trump Jr. was an alcoholic and died in 1981 at the age of 43, also said he’s never had a drink and joked ‘can you imagine’ what ‘a mess I’d be’ if he had indulged.
‘I’m not a drinker. I can honestly say I’ve never had a beer in my life. It’s one of my only good traits. I don’t drink. Whenever they’re looking for something I say ‘I’ve never had a glass of alcohol. I’ver never had alcohol for whatever reason’ Can you image if I had what a mess I’d be? I’d be the world’s worst. But I never drank,’ he said.
But he said he doesn’t judge people who drank in high school.
‘I graduated from high school and while I did not drink I saw a lot of people drinking. They’d drink beer and they’d go crazy and they were in high school. They were 15, 16 years old and I saw a lot of it. Does that mean they can’t do something they want to do in their life?’ he said.
‘I really believe he was very strong on the fact he drank a lot,’ he said of Kavanaugh.
In October, Trump, in a rare moment of introspection, talked about the lessons he learned from his brother Fred, who he called a ‘great guy’ but acknowledged his problem with alcohol.
The president recalled how Fred would frequently tell him ‘don’t drink’ and ‘don’t smoke.’ And he said he listened because he respected his brother.
‘And to this day I’ve never had a drink, and I have no longing for it. I have no interest in it,’ Trump said at the time. ‘To this day, I’ve never had a cigarette.’
President Trump’s brother, Fred Trump Jr.
On Monday, the president dismissed a suggestion Kavanaugh may have lied to senators about the extent of his alcohol use.
Some Democrats have expressed concern the FBI – in their investigation into sexual allegations against Kavanaugh – are reportedly not talking to high school and college classmates, some of whom have said Kavanaugh drank to excess.
In his committee testimony, Kavanaugh said ‘I like beer’ but said he never drank to the point of blacking out.
‘Sometimes I had too many beers. I liked beer. I still like beer. But I never drank beer to the point of blacking out, and I never sexually assaulted anyone,’ Kavanaugh said on Thursday.
Democrats are concerned investigators will not examine Kavanaugh’s drinking habits.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota expressed concern some people who knew Kavanaugh when he was at Yale University would not be interviewed about their recollections of him drinking.
‘You have these other people from parts of his life who have said that he was belligerent when he was drunk and other things. Now, they have not been interviewed by the FBI,’ she said on CNN on Sunday.
Klobuchar, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, specifically asked Kavanaugh on Thursday about his drinking, including if he had ever drunk so much he ‘didn’t remember what happened the night before or part of what happened.’
‘You’re asking about blackout. I don’t know, have you?’ Kavanaugh responded.
‘Could you answer the question, judge?’ Klobuchar said.
She told CNN she was ‘stunned’ at his behavior.
‘I was really stunned by how he acted at that hearing. This is basically a job interview for the highest court of the land,’ Klobuchar said.
Trump dismissed the senators’ concerns about what Kavanaugh may have done or not done while he was in school.
Klobuchar reacted to Kavanaugh’s behavior during his testimony in a CNN interview Sunday
Charles ‘Chad’ Ludington, who said he was Brett Kavanaugh’s friend at Yale and sometimes drank with him, has described him as ‘a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker’
Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar has said she was ‘really stunned’ by the way Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh conducted himself when he testified in front of her and the rest of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday
‘Nobody asked him what happened in the last 25,30 years during his professional career because there were no bad reports,’ he said on Monday in the Rose Garden a the White House.
He added: ‘Take a look at a judge who has lived an exemplary life. And you go back to high school because he had beer. I think the judge has been pretty amazing about describing his situation with alcohol and with beer.’
Additionally, a former Yale University classmate of Kavanaugh’s described him as ‘a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker’ at college.
Charles ‘Chad’ Ludington, who now teaches at North Carolina State University, said on Sunday that he is ‘deeply troubled’ by what he claims is a blatant mischaracterization by Kavanaugh of his drinking.
Ludington, who said in a statement that he was Kavanaugh’s friend at Yale and used to drink with him, accused the Supreme Court nominee of being untruthful in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the extent of his drinking in college.
In addition to being a ‘frequent’ and ‘heavy drinker’, Ludington said Kavanaugh was often ‘belligerent and aggressive’ when drunk.
‘On many occasions I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption, not all of which was beer,’ he said.
‘When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive.’
Ludington said he plans to speak to the FBI because he believes Kavanaugh downplayed the ‘degree and frequency’ of his drinking during the Senate hearing.
‘I can unequivocally say that in denying the possibility that he ever blacked out from drinking, and in downplaying the degree and frequency of his drinking, Brett has not told the truth,’ he said.
Trump said on Monday the FBI could question whomever they deemed necessary
‘Let the Senate decide – whatever they want to do is fine,’ he said. ‘And the FBI. I think the FBI should do whatever they have to do to get to an answer.’
‘I want them to do a very comprehensive investigation – whatever that means according to the senators,’ he added.