WASHINGTON, D.C. — At the conservative Values Voters Summit in Washington D.C., accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh largely fell on deaf ears.
Attendees at the event — which featured speakers like Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Michele Bachmann, and Tony Perkins — told ThinkProgress Friday that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that Kavanaugh attempted to rape her in the early 1980s should be investigated. However many also claimed the timing of the revelation was political.
One Family Research Council member from Massachusetts, who declined to be named, said the media and Democrats’ treatment of Kavanaugh was clearly biased. “He’s had six separate FBI reports about him,” he told ThinkProgress. “Every single one of them, especially [from women witnesses] has had nothing but plaudits for him. Not a single person was aggrieved.”
He said he was supporting Kavanaugh because he would “follow the Constitution” on issues like religious liberty and abortion.
Pete Bohn, 72, who served in Iraq and Vietnam and currently works as a law enforcement officer in Delaware, said it was possible the sexual assault happened but there was too much uncertainty surrounding it. He said Kavanaugh was fully qualified and would support strict constitutional interpretation, which was “what it’s all about.”
“Firstly, why was is not reported 36 years ago?” Bohn asked. “Secondly she never definitely told anyone else, the first time it came out is in therapy, then this letter pops up and is sat on.”
“A lot of what Democrats do is throw stuff to see if it sticks out there,” Bohn added. “The whole thing is just a delaying tactic the left and the progressives are using [because] their religion is abortion. I have no problem with women’s rights but they’re after babies.”
Ford, who also goes by “Blasey” professionally, says she and Kavanaugh, then teenagers, were at a house party with their classmates in the early 1980s when Kavanaugh allegedly pushed her into an empty bedroom and attempted to rape her, covering her mouth with his hands to mute her screams. She says she eventually freed herself and got away. She later told a therapist about the incident, as well as her husband.
The California professor sent a letter detailing that account to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) this summer, ahead of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, requesting anonymity. Feinstein, ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, held onto the letter until this month, forwarding it to the FBI after Ford’s story went public in a story published by The Intercept, which did not name Ford outright due to confidentiality. Ford has since agreed to sit down with the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify at a future date.
Jason Ellerbrook, who runs an evangelical media company based in Tennessee, said he was worried for young men who set themselves out on a career, because of the possibility that someone could “come over out of nowhere” and accuse them, decades later, of an incident that happened in high school.
Ellerbrook also noted that Mitch McConnell’s decision to proceed with Merick Garland’s nomination under the Obama administration set a dangerous precedent, and served to further politicize the Supreme Court.
“I believe it goes along with a slippy slope,” Ellerbrook said. “Politically I didn’t agree with Garland as nomination, but I don’t believe in these political games. It’s getting so bad that an attack [on Kavanaugh or Ford] is becoming more likely. It’s going to lead to someone getting hurt.”
Ford has indeed received death threats and harassment over her decision to come forward about the allegations. In the past week alone, she has had to hire private security and move out of her home. According to the Washington Post, her email was also hacked. She was separated from her children for several days after going into hiding and, according to the Post, even “looked into a security service to escort [the] children to school.”
Kavanaugh, meanwhile — who maintains he did nothing wrong — has received the support of many on the right, including Senate Judiciary Republicans like Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT). President Trump has also praised Kavanaugh as “an incredible individual” with “great intellect.”