Trailing in every recent poll, Virginia Republican Senate nominee Corey Stewart faced incumbent Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine on Tuesday in their final debate before the November election. The former Virginia state campaign co-chair for Donald Trump seized the opportunity to make baseless allegations of sexual misconduct by his opponent and others, though none have actually been accused of any wrongdoing.
Stewart, who has called the accusations made by Christine Blasey Ford against Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh “a bunch of crap,” has repeatedly backed fellow Republicans accused of actual sexual predation.
What else did Judge #Kavanaugh do – pull a girl’s pigtail in 1st Grade?@TheDemocrats are so desperate – it stinks to high heaven!
Kavanaugh Confirmation: Dems Final Hail Mary To Stop It – Sara A. Carter https://t.co/OBseciRybh
— Corey Stewart (@CoreyStewartVA) September 14, 2018
Stewart’s argument on Tuesday was, essentially, that since there have been cases of sexual misconduct in the Senate, we don’t know for sure that Kaine hasn’t been involved in one of them. Kaine responded that this inference was completely false.
Noting that there have been confidential settlements paid for men “who have been harassing women in the halls of Congress,” Stewart made the baseless suggestion that Kaine or other Democrats could have been among them. “Is Senator [Cory] Booker on that list? Is Senator Kaine on that list? Is Senator [Richard] Blumenthal on that list?”
Stewart then released a radio ad making the same bogus claim. “While Tim Kaine and the Democrats falsely accuse Judge Kavanaugh over high school rumors, they won’t tell us which of the senators are sexual predators,” Stewart says in the spot. “Why not Senator Kaine? What are you hiding? Are you on that list?”
Kaine forcefully called out Stewart for both the dishonest claim and his rank hypocrisy on the subject. “Don’t pretend you care about sexual assault,” Kaine told Stewart. “If you did, you wouldn’t have called Dr. Ford a ‘bunch of crap.’ If you did, you wouldn’t have gone to Alabama to campaign for Roy Moore, and, just last month, you wouldn’t have gone to Amherst County to campaign with Vance Wilkins, who had to retire as speaker in disgrace after paying hush money to settle sexual harassment claims.”
Stewart is no stranger to making wildly irresponsible and false claims. In March, he tweeted, “You’re more likely to be killed by @timkaine running mate @HillaryClinton than you are by an AR-15.”