(Bloomberg) — A new accuser against Brett Kavanaugh said the Supreme Court nominee took part in efforts during high school to get girls intoxicated so that a group of boys could have sex with them.
“I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their ‘turn’ with a girl inside the room,” Washington resident Julie Swetnick said in a sworn affidavit released by attorney Michael Avenatti. “These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh,” she added. Judge was a high school classmate of Kavanaugh.
The White House had no immediate comment. The allegation comes one day before Kavanaugh is set to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing along with another accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, who says Kavanaugh held her down and tried to take her clothes off when they were in high school.
George Hartmann, a spokesman for Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, said the hearing is still going forward Thursday as scheduled. Another committee spokesman, Taylor Foy, said the panel received Swetnick’s declaration Wednesday and “committee lawyers are in the process of reviewing it now.”
Kavanaugh has denied Ford’s accusation as well as another from a former Yale University classmate who said he exposed himself to her at a drunken party. He has said, “I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone in high school or otherwise.”
The new allegation comes one day before Kavanaugh is set to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing along with another accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, who says Kavanaugh held her down and tried to take her clothes off when they were in high school.
Swetnick said in the affidavit that she saw Kavanaugh, Judge and others seek to cause girls “to become inebriated and disoriented so they could then be ‘gang raped’ in a side room or bedroom by a ‘train’ of numerous boys.”
Swetnick said she was a victim of one of those incidents in the early 1980s and that Kavanaugh and Judge had been present, though she did not say whether they had sex with her. “I believe I was drugged using Quaaludes or something similar placed in what I was drinking,” she said in the statement.
Kavanaugh’s claim during a Fox News interview Monday that he was a virgin until “many years” after high school was “absolutely false and a lie,” Swetnick said. She added, “I witnessed Brett Kavanaugh consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women during the early 1980s.”
“I also witnessed Brett Kavanaugh behave as a ‘mean drunk’ on many occasions at these parties,” Swetnick said.
The affidavit said she has clearances to work with multiple federal agencies, including the Treasury Department.
Republicans have been hoping to win confirmation for Kavanaugh by early next week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been preparing a weekend session to run the procedural clock out, an unusual move reflecting the high stakes and the desire to let GOP senators campaign on Kavanaugh’s confirmation in the November election.
Republicans hold a 51-49 advantage in the Senate and can’t afford more than one defection to ensure confirmation without Democratic support.
Swetnick is the third woman to come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh. The New Yorker magazine quoted Deborah Ramirez as saying Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a dormitory party that involved drinking when they both were Yale University freshmen.
Avenatti is best known as the lawyer for Stephanie Clifford, the adult film star known as Stormy Daniels who says she had an affair with Trump before he was elected president. Avenatti has said he is exploring his own bid for the presidency as a Democrat.
