A third woman came forward Wednesday to accuse Supreme Court justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, alleging that Kavanaugh was “present” during her gang rape in 1982.
In a sworn declaration delivered to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Julie Swetnick alleged Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge as teenagers acted 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 one of these victims in Maryland where Kavanaugh and Judge were “present.”
“During the incident, I was incapacitated without my consent and unable to fight off the boys raping me,” she said.
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Swetnick claims Kavanaugh, Judge, and others spiked drinks at parties to girls compliant, even targeting “particular girls so they could be taken advantage of.”
“I believe I was drugged using Quaaludes or something similar placed in what I was drinking,” she said.
The gang-rape allegation was made two days after Judge’s ex-girlfriend told the New Yorker that he once admitted to her that he’d taken turns with other boys having sex with a drunk woman.
“This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don't know who this is and this never happened,” Kavanaugh said in a statement released by the White House.
Swetnick, 55, graduated from Gaithersburg High School in suburban Washington, D.C. Kavanaugh, 52, graduated from nearby Georgetown Preparatory School, an elite all-boys school.
Though they didn’t attend the same school, at parties together Swetnick said she saw Kavanaugh prey on other girls.
“I observed Brett Kavanaugh drink excessively at many of these parties and engage in abusive and physically aggressive behavior towards girls, including pressing girls against him without their consent, ‘grinding’ against girls, and attempting to remove or shift girls’ clothing to expose private body parts.”
She also claimed to have witnessed Kavanaugh and Judge be “overly aggressive” with girls, including “not taking ‘No’ for an answer.”
Swetnick’s allegations were provided to the Senate and released publicly on Twitter by her attorney, Michael Avenatti. A spokesperson for the Judiciary Committee said it is reviewing her statement now.
President Donald Trump called Avenatti, who is representing adult-film star Stormy Daniels in a lawsuit against Trump, a “third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, like he did on me and like he is now doing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh.”
The new allegation comes the day before Kavanaugh and his first accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, are both scheduled to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Ford accused Kavanaugh of pinning her down and groping her at a party when the two of them were in high school in the summer of 1982.
A second woman, Deborah Ramirez told the New Yorker that Kavanaugh drunkenly exposed himself to her at a party when they both were attending Yale University during the 1983-84 academic year.
Kavanaugh has previously denied all allegations of sexual misconduct and on Thursday plans to tell the judiciary committee, “I have never sexually assaulted anyone—not in high school, not in college, not ever.”
For days Avenatti has been hinting he had explosive allegations against the already embattled nominee. On Sunday, he tweeted out correspondence between himself and a Republican judiciary committee staffer showing he had made them aware of his client and her claims, but until today the committee had not received any further information about the new allegation.
Avenatti’s involvement in the Kavanaugh confirmation process has caused a mix of nervousness and frustration among Hill Democrats, who raised concern that his tactics would do more harm than good in a already process made toxic by politics.
Republicans, on the other hand, quickly took aim at the celebrity lawyer.
"In my view, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it just did," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said in a statement. "The lawyer to porn stars has just taken this debacle to an even lower level. I hope people will be highly suspicious of this allegation presented by Michael Avenatti."
While initially spooked by Ford’s allegations, Republicans have increasingly lined up behind Kavanaugh, calling the allegations a “smear” and “uncorroborated."
In a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed to bring Kavanaugh’s nomination for a vote no matter what comes out of Thursday’s hearing.
“[I] look forward eagerly to hearing from both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh under oath this Thursday morning. I am glad we will be able to hear testimony from both,” he said. “ And then I look forward to an up-or-down vote on this nomination right here on the Senate floor.”
