Second woman alleges assault by Kavanaugh

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are investigating another allegation of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh, the embattled Supreme Court nominee, according to a new report.

The federal judge is already facing an accusation from Christine Blasey Ford, who claims that Kavanaugh drunkenly forced himself on her at a house party in Maryland more than three decades ago. But the latest charge comes from Kavanaugh’s time as a student at Yale University.

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Deborah Ramirez, who is 53, told Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer of The New Yorker that when Kavanaugh was a freshman at Yale in the 1983-84 academic school year, she remembers that he “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.”

In a statement Kavanaugh made to The New Yorker and released by the White House, he called the allegation a “smear” that “did not happen.”

“The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so,” he said. “This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name — and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building — against these last-minute allegations.”

White House spokeswoman Kerri Kupec echoed that language in a statement on Sunday night, saying Ramirez’s “35-year-old, uncorroborated claim” was simply “the latest in a coordinated smear campaign by the Democrats designed to tear down a good man.”

Kupec added: “This claim is denied by all who were said to be present and is wholly inconsistent with what many women and men who knew Judge Kavanaugh at the time in college say. The White House stands firmly behind Judge Kavanaugh.”

Farrow and Mayer have both previously reported on abuses of power and allegations of sexual misconduct by powerful men. Farrow’s most recent reporting related to the #MeToo movement was the catalyst for CBS’ decision to oust its longtime network head, Les Moonves, earlier this month.