Top White House adviser Kellyanne Conway on Monday appeared to brush off the severity of sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh because they allegedly occurred when he wasn’t “powerful.”
“This may be the first time we ever heard of allegations against someone as a teenager who did not prey upon women thusly as he became powerful,” Conway said during an appearance Monday on “CBS This Morning.”
“It’s when men become powerful and think that they can use women and interrupt their careers if they want to for their own predatory proclivities that then they start preying upon women,” she continued. “The allegations against him are all from when he was a teenager, and then we’re supposed to believe he’s a judge of a dozen years hiring female law clerks to boot.”
Kavanaugh, 53, has been the subject of mounting sexual misconduct allegations in recent weeks. Christine Blasey Ford identified herself last Sunday as the woman who sent a confidential letter in late July to Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to express her concern over Kavanaugh’s nomination.
Blasey alleged Kavanaugh pinned her down and groped her when they were teenagers at a small party in suburban Maryland in the early 1980s.
On Sunday, The New Yorker published a report detailing accusations from a second woman, Deborah Ramirez, who claims Kavanaugh thrust his penis in her face during a drunken dormitory party when they were undergraduates at Yale University.
Michael Avenatti, best known as the attorney for former adult film actress Stormy Daniels, announced Sunday that he is representing a third woman “with credible information regarding Judge Kavanaugh.”
But Conway on Monday appeared to throw cold water on the accusations, stating she felt the mounting allegations were “starting to feel like a vast left-wing conspiracy.” She made several eyebrow-raising statements during her CBS appearance, such as claiming some women don’t report their sexual assaults because other women “make false accusations.”
“I can tell you that some women do not come forward because they fear not being believed, and a lot of other women don’t come forward because of other women who make false accusations,” Conway said. “So it cuts both ways.”
But according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, most women who don’t report their sexual assault choose not to for fear of retaliation, feel it’s a “personal matter” or “not important enough to report,” or believe police would not or could not do anything to help.
“I just don’t think one man’s shoulders should bear decades of the Me Too movement,” Conway told CBS.
Blasey and Kavanaugh are scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about Blasey’s accusations on Thursday. The panel has delayed their vote on whether to advance Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the full Senate to hear Blasey’s testimony.
Feinstein, a top Democrat on the committee, called Sunday for a further postponement of the vote following The New Yorker’s report on Ramirez’s allegations.