Women are expected to play a key role in White House’s defense against the sexual assault allegation roiling Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process, according to CNN.
White House officials are currently contacting women from Kavanaugh’s past, particularly those who knew him in high school, to ask them to speak publicly about his integrity, sources told the network.
{mosads}The White House team tasked with defending Kavanaugh is also reportedly considering holding a news conference with a group of women backing him this week.
The team has already begun contacting the 65 women who signed onto a letter supporting Kavanaugh last week, before California professor Christine Blasey Ford went public with her accusation, CNN reported.
Ford, who is alleging that Kavanaugh held her down on a bed and groped her during a high school party in the 1980s, will testify publicly next week. Kavanaugh is also set to testify.
Women have already begun to come out in support of Kavanaugh in recent days.
Two women who say they dated Kavanaugh and have known him since high school released statements vouching for his character on Monday.
“Brett Kavanaugh and I have been good friends since high school,” Maura Fitzgerald said in a statement disseminated by a conservative public relations firm. “I dated him in college and he was and is nothing like the person who has been described.”
Women who knew Kavanaugh during his time in former President George W. Bush’s administration have also been posting messages of support with the hashtag #IStandWithBrett.
Ford is alleging that Kavanaugh held her down and tried to take off her clothes during a party when the two were students at neighboring D.C.-area high schools. She says the incident has caused her decades of emotional trauma, a claim that she has substantiated with notes from therapy sessions.
Kavanaugh and the White House have denied Ford’s allegation.