GOP Senate candidate: Allegations against Kavanaugh ‘absurd’

North Dakota GOP Senate nominee Rep. Kevin Cramer on Friday pushed back against sexual misconduct allegations against President Trump’s Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh, calling them “absurd” given the circumstances.

Cramer in an interview with a North Dakota radio station compared the allegations from Christine Blasey Ford against Kavanaugh to Anita Hill’s allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991.

“If to the degree there was any legitimacy to Anita Hill’s claims, and she tried and didn’t prevail — Clarence Thomas did and America did — this case is even more absurd because these people were teenagers when this supposed alleged incident took place,” Cramer said on “The Jarrod Thomas Show” in an interview first highlighted by CNN.

{mosads}“These are teenagers who evidently were drunk, according to her own statement. They were drunk. Nothing evidently happened in it all, even by her own accusation. Again, it was supposedly an attempt or something that never went anywhere,” he added. 

Ford went public with the allegations Sunday in an interview with The Washington Post, saying Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and tried to remove her clothes during a party in the early 1980s, when both were in high school.

Kavanaugh has denied the allegations, which have upended his nomination to the Supreme Court and delayed the confirmation process as the Senate Judiciary Committee seeks to speak with both individuals next week.

“You just can’t expect to defame a guy who’s got a stellar record and a stellar, nearly perfect reputation, near as I can tell, character-wise, and be able to be the last word,” Cramer said during the radio interview Friday.

He also bashed the Democrats’ handling of the allegations.

“If all of that is in fact true, the tragedy for her is that her testimony is being used as a political weapon and that even her own wishes, if they’re true, to [Sen.] Dianne Feinstein [D-Calif.] that she didn’t want it out to the public, were denied not by her but by Dianne Feinstein,” he said, referring to the ranking member of the committee.

Feinstein has said that she held onto a letter outlining the allegations because Ford asked to remain anonymous, but that media leaks of the letter’s existence forced her to go public with the letter, though not Ford’s identity.

Feinstein’s office has denied it was the source of the leaks. 

Cramer also questioned if the allegations would prevent others from seeking judicial or political appointments.

“Why would any good person ever put themselves forward to be a judge, an appellate court judge, a Supreme Court justice, frankly a member of Congress or the United States Senate or governor or anything else, if this is the new standard? You know, roll out an accusation that no one else can corroborate, and we believe the accuser without appropriate due process,” he said. 

Cramer is currently battling Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), one of 10 Senate Democrats up for reelection this year in states won by Trump in 2016.

Heitkamp voted for Trump’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, last year but has not said yet how she will vote on Kavanaugh.

Ford’s lawyer is currently in discussions with the Judiciary Committee to arrange her testimony for next week.

She was initially open to testifying on Monday in a public session, but walked that back, saying she wanted the FBI to investigate her claims before she made an appearance.

Her lawyer told the committee on Thursday that she’d be willing to testify next Thursday if Kavanaugh testified first, was not in the same room as her and she would only be questioned by committee members.

Republicans on the committee put together a counteroffer for her to testify Wednesday and before Kavanaugh.