Washington, US President Donald Trump’S Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh repeatedly denied accusations of sexual misconduct that have threatened to derail his confirmation in an exclusive interview with Fox News.
“What I know is the truth, and the truth is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone,” Kavanaugh said in the interview on Monday night.
Kavanaugh’s wife, Ashley, said the allegations against her husband were “hard to believe”.
“I know Brett. I’ve known him for 17 years… He’s decent, he’s kind, he’s good. I know his heart. This is not consistent with Brett,” she said.
California professor Christine Blasey Ford has accused Kavanaugh of covering her mouth and trying to remove her clothing at a party in the early 1980s, when both were in high school.
Kavanaugh and Ford are set to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
In the interview, Kavanaugh emphatically denied Ford’s claim against him, saying that he was “never at any such party”.
Kavanaugh added that he was “not questioning and have not questioned that perhaps Ford at some point in her life was sexually assaulted by someone at some place, but what I know is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone”.
He also denied a New Yorker report published on Sunday night in which classmate Deborah Ramirez said he exposed himself to her while they were students at Yale.
“I never did any such thing,” Kavanaugh told Fox News.
“The other people alleged to be there don’t recall any such thing. If such a thing had happened, it would have been the talk of campus.”
Top Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have slammed what they described as a “smear campaign” orchestrated in part by Democrats.
Trump has also repeatedly defended his nominee against sexual misconduct accusations, which he has called “totally political” and “one of the single most unfair, unjust things to happen to a candidate for anything”.
Kavanaugh said in the interview that Trump had called him on Monday afternoon to say “he’s standing by me” and said he was confident that will remain the case.
