Trump unleashes on Kavanaugh accuser as key Republican wavers

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump assailed the latest woman to accuse Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, saying on Tuesday that she “has nothing” because she was “messed up” at the time, even as a key Republican senator urged colleagues to take the accusations seriously.

“The second accuser has nothing,” Trump said. “She thinks maybe it could have been him, maybe not. She admits that she was drunk. She admits time lapses. There were time lapses.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Republican leadership said on Tuesday that it had retained an outside counsel — Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader, called her a “female assistant” — to aid in Thursday’s hearing to question Kavanaugh’s first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.

Rachel Mitchell, chief of the Special Victims Division of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in Arizona, was hired to question Blasey rather than allowing the 11 male Republicans grill her about her account of a sexual assault in high school. Blasey had sought to have the senators question her rather than a lawyer.

As Trump and Republican leaders insisted that they will install Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court despite the accusations, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a crucial Republican swing vote, offered a blunt warning of her own: Do not prejudge sexual assault allegations against the nominee.

“We are now in a place where it’s not about whether or not Judge Kavanaugh is qualified,” Murkowski said in an extended interview on Monday night in the Capitol. “It is about whether or not a woman who has been a victim at some point in her life is to be believed.”

With a 51-49 majority, Senate Republicans can afford to lose only one vote assuming they get no Democrats. If Murkowski votes no, she could swing Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the other abortion-rights Republican in the Senate. But Republican leaders went ahead to schedule a committee vote for Friday, just a day after the hearing, a move that drew rebukes from Democrats who said the majority was not taking the allegations seriously.

Senate Judiciary Committee staff members interviewed Kavanaugh by telephone on Tuesday about Deborah Ramirez, the second accuser, who went public this week with her account of college-age sexual misconduct. Kavanaugh denied her allegation, just as he previously has Blasey’s account, according to people familiar with the interview.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Trump unleashes on Kavanaugh accuser as key Republican wavers

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump assailed the latest woman to accuse Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, saying on Tuesday that she “has nothing” because she was “messed up” at the time, even as a key Republican senator urged colleagues to take the accusations seriously.

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