The Senate Judiciary Committee has been in the midst of an event reminiscent of the Justice Clarence Thomas hearing with one of his alleged victims of sexual abuse, Anita Hill. What the Republicans do this time around will mark their place in history. They have crashed ahead at break-neck speed ignoring witness after witness against Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh. In spite of them, a third woman has come forward.
Julie Swetnick claimed she was at parties where Kavanaugh and his best buddy, Mark Judge attended, too. She gave only one on-air interview with Showtime’s The Circus. It previewed on MSNBC’s Morning Joe where she said:
‘He’s going to have that seat for rest of his life. If he’s gonna have that seat legitimately, all these things should be investigated, because from what I experienced first-hand, I don’t think he belongs on the Supreme Court. I just want the facts to come out, and I want it to be just, and I want the American people to have those facts and judge for themselves.’
Swetnick said that the claims by the Republicans that she came out just one day before the Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Kavanaugh were false:
‘It wasn’t that I wanted to come out one day before the hearing. This is something that occurred the long time ago. It’s not that I just thought about it, it’s been on my mind ever since the occurrence.’
In actuality, her attorney Michael Avenatti first approached the committee the Sunday before the Thursday hearing. The committee did not return his calls and drug its feet through this witness’ claim.
Not to be deterred by the Republicans, Swetnick made public a legally binding declaration prior to the hearing. In it, she claimed that Kavanaugh and friends tried to drug or intoxicate women who attended parties with them in the early 1980’s. Their intent, she claimed, was to make the women so out of it they could be “gang raped.” In fact, she alleged that she, too, was a victim of one such attack when Kavanaugh was there. Avenatti accompanied his client for the interview.
Kavanaugh appeared to follow Trump’s advice: deny, deny, deny. He called Swetnick’s claim “ridiculous” and said he did not even know who she was.
Swetnick is only one of several witnesses who have risked ridicule from not only the Republicans, but even the president of these United States during an international press conference. They have all alleged that the nominee sexually molested them.
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was the only woman allowed to testify before the committee. She said that Kavanaugh and Judge forced her into a bedroom during one of these parties, locked the door, and turned up the music. Then, the nominee, who played football, pinned her to the bed, ground himself against her, and tried to remove her clothes.
What frightened Ford the most was when she tried to scream, he put his hand over her mouth. She found it hard to breathe and feared he would inadvertently kill her. When Judge piled on a second time, she was able to escape Kavanaugh’s hold on her and lock herself in a bathroom.
Another woman Deborah Ramirez also claimed that Kavanaugh exposed his penis to her during a Yale dorm party, also in the 1980’s.
The entire Swetnick interview was scheduled to air on the next episode of The Circus.
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
