A coalition of progressive advocacy organizations on Thursday urged House Democrats to investigate the sexual-assault allegations leveled against Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation process last year.
“Senate Republicans made a mockery of their constitutional responsibility to provide ‘advice and consent’ on the president’s nomination of Justice Kavanaugh, and the American people deserve to know how and why the process was such a sham,” the groups wrote in a letter to the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees.“The public is just as entitled to a thorough review of Justice Kavanaugh’s record now as it was before he was elevated to the Supreme Court and to know whether allegations against him of sexual assault and perjury have any factual basis.”
A series of unsubstantiated allegations of sexual assault by former high-school and college classmates nearly derailed Kavanaugh’s confirmation last fall. Though an FBI investigation failed to produce evidence that Kavanaugh ever assaulted anyone, Democrats and their progressive allies insisted that the mere existence of allegations was sufficient to disqualify the nominee.
In their letter, the progressive groups seized on the oft-repeated argument that the FBI probe was insufficient because it did not include interviews with Kavanaugh or one of his accusers, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.
“The Republican majority in the Senate initially resisted opening any sort of investigation into the allegations, but eventually relented to calls for an additional hearing and a supplemental FBI background check,” the groups wrote. “However, the hearing raised more questions than it answered, and the supplemental FBI investigation was so limited as to be virtually meaningless.”
In addition to calling for an investigation into the sexual-assault allegations, the progressive groups asked House Democrats to examine Kavanaugh’s record from his time in the George W. Bush White House, as well as his personal financial debt, much of which resulted from his purchasing season tickets to the Washington Nationals for friends who later reimbursed him.