Kavanaugh incorrectly claims he could legally drink as a high school senior

Throughout his nomination process for the Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh has frequently said that he could legally drink beer during his senior year at Georgetown Prep in Maryland.

However, the state’s drinking age was raised to 21 at the end of his junior year when he was still 17, meaning that it was actually never legal for him while in high school, according to an Associated Press report.

Kavanaugh’s drinking habits came under scrutiny Thursday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing into sexual assault allegations made against the nominee.

{mosads}Christine Blasey Ford gave intense testimony before the panel alleging that Kavanaugh was heavily intoxicated when he pinned her to a bed and tried to take her clothes off while the two were both teenagers at a Maryland house party.

Although Kavanaugh has categorically denied Ford’s claims, he has agreed that he drank while in high school, but says he never did it to the point of blacking out and has defended the drinking as legal.

In an interview on Fox News on Monday he said, “Yes, there were parties. And the drinking age was 18. And yes, the seniors were legal.”

During Thursday’s testimony, he made the same argument.

“Yes, we drank beer, my friends and I, boys and girls. Yes, we drank beer. I liked beer. I still like beer,” he said.

“The drinking age, as I noted, was 18, so the seniors were legal. Senior year in high school, people were legal to drink.”

However, the legal drinking age in Maryland was raised from 18 to 21 on July 1, 1982, and Kavanaugh did not turn 18 until Feb. 12, 1983.

It is worth noting that Kavanaugh could legally drink in Washington, D.C., for his final five months of high school, where the age was not raised until 1986.