Massachusetts representative Ayanna Pressley plans to introduce a resolution Tuesday calling for impeachment hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who finds himself once again at the center of a decades-old allegation of sexual misconduct.
“Sexual predators do not deserve a seat on the nation’s highest court and Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process set a dangerous precedent,” Pressley said in a statement to WBUR. “We must demand justice for survivors and hold Kavanaugh accountable for his actions.”
The two-page resolution, which Politico obtained early, calls on the House Judiciary Committee to look into whether the newest Supreme Court justice should be removed from his seat and grants the committee subpoena power in its quest to answer that question.
Pressley’s resolution comes after the New York Times published an excerpt from a book titled The Education of Brett Kavanaugh. Written by two Times reporters, Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, the book adds further support to claims made during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings that he exposed himself to a woman named Deborah Ramirez when they were both students at Yale. It also details a previously unreported allegation of sexual misconduct at Yale. The calls for Kavanaugh’s impeachment came quickly after the report was published, with several Democratic candidates for the presidency leading the way.
Elizabeth Warren tweeted, “Like the man who appointed him, Kavanaugh should be impeached.” Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, and Julián Castro all tweeted something similar, all pointing out that they believe Kavanaugh lied under oath.
The fervor seemed to die down after the Times amended its story to note that the woman at the center of the new allegation does not remember the incident and declined to speak to reporters about it. As the Washington Post noted on Tuesday, the book also includes new details that call Christine Blasey Ford’s account into question. Blasey Ford said her friend Leland Keyser attended the high school party where she was sexually assaulted. Keyser did not testify during the Kavanaugh hearings, telling investigators that she believed Ford but could not recall the night in question. But in an interview with Pogrebin and Kelly, Keyser makes it clear that she now questions Blasey Ford’s story. “Those facts together I don’t recollect, and it just doesn’t make any sense,” Keyser said.
Pressley’s eagerness to start the process of impeaching Kavanaugh is not being welcomed by many of the leaders of her own party. “Get real,” Democratic senator Dick Durbin told Politico about the push to remove Kavanaugh. “We’ve got to get beyond this ‘Impeachment is the answer to every problem.’ It’s not realistic.”
More importantly, Jerry Nadler, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, says he has no interest in talking about impeaching Kavanaugh. Instead, he said Monday, the committee will be “concentrating our resources on determining whether to impeach the president.”
This post was updated to include new details on Leland Keyser.
