Washington
The letter — signed by eight of the 10 Democrats on the committee — provides no specifics to back up the Democrats’ assertion that Kavanaugh’s past background checks included such evidence. But the letter challenged the accuracy of a tweet from the committee’s Republican staff on Tuesday that read: “Nowhere in any of these six FBI reports, which the committee has reviewed on a bipartisan basis, was there ever a whiff of ANY issue — at all — related in any way to inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse.”
The Democrats said the information in the tweet is “not accurate,” urging the GOP to correct them.
“It is troubling that the committee majority has characterized information from Judge Kavanaugh’s confidential background investigation on Twitter, as that information is confidential and not subject to public release,” Democrats, led by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., wrote to the committee’s chairman, Chuck Grassley. “If the committee majority is going to violate that confidentiality and characterize this background investigation publicly, you must at least be honest about it.
The two committee Democrats who did not sign the letter were Sens. Chris Coons, of Delaware, and Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota.
Grassley’s staff responded on Twitter on Wednesday evening that “nothing in the tweet is inaccurate or misleading.”
“The committee stands by its statement, which is completely truthful,” the committee Republicans said. “More baseless innuendo and more false smears from Senate Democrats.”
Earlier, a trio of Republican senators crucial to Kavanaugh’s confirmation prospects criticized President Donald Trump for mocking the account of a woman who has accused his Supreme Court nominee of sexual assault decades ago.
In separate interviews, Sens. Jeff Flake, of Arizona, Susan Collins, of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska — all considered swing votes on Kavanaugh — took issue with comments the president made the night before at a political rally in Mississippi that drew laughs from his supporters.
“There’s no time and no place for remarks like that,” Flake, R-Ariz., said on NBC’s Today show. “To discuss something this sensitive at a political rally is just not right. It’s just not right. I wish he hadn’t done it … It’s kind of appalling.”
Flake, the Judiciary Committee member who pushed to delay the vote on Kavanaugh so the FBI could investigate, later told The Washington Post that Trump’s comments would not factor into his thinking on the nomination.
“You can’t take it out on other people, the president’s insensitive remarks,” he said.
The impact on Collins and Murkowski was less clear.
About two hours after Flake’s appearance, Collins also took exception to Trump’s remarks, telling reporters, “The president’s comments were just plain wrong.” She did not answer a question about whether the comments could affect how she votes on Kavanaugh.
Speaking to reporters early Wednesday afternoon, Murkowski said: “I thought the president’s comments yesterday mocking Dr. Ford were wholly inappropriate and in my view unacceptable.”
Asked whether the comments would affect her vote, she said: “I am taking everything into account.”
In his most direct attack on Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault while both were teenagers in Maryland, Trump sought Tuesday night to highlight holes in the account Ford gave in sworn testimony to the Judiciary Committee last week.
“ ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ ‘Upstairs? Downstairs? Where was it?’ ‘I don’t know. But I had one beer. That’s the only thing I remember,’ ” Trump said of Ford, as he impersonated her on stage.
“ ‘I don’t remember,’ ” he said repeatedly, apparently mocking her testimony.
Ford has said that the incident happened in an upstairs room at a gathering of teenagers and that she is “100 percent” certain it was Kavanaugh who assaulted her, although she has acknowledged that her memories of other details of the evening remain unclear.
The day after Ford’s testimony, Trump said she was “very compelling” and a “very credible witness.”