Iran’s supreme leader: No talks with the US at any level

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader announced on Tuesday that “there will be no talks with the U.S. at any level” — remarks apparently meant to end all speculation about a possible U.S.-Iran meeting between the two countries’ presidents at the U.N. later this month.

Iranian state TV quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying this is the position of the entire leadership of the country and that “all officials in the Islamic Republic unanimously believe” this.

“There will be no talks with the U.S. at any level,” he said.

Khamenei said the U.S. wants to prove its “maximum pressure policy” against Iran is successful.

“In return, we have to prove that the policy is not worth a penny for the Iranian nation,” Khamenei said. “That’s why all Iranian officials, from the president and the foreign minister to all others have announced that we do not negotiate (with the U.S.) either bilaterally or multilaterally.”

There had been reports about a possible meeting between President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, during the upcoming U.N. General Assembly this month in New York.

But tensions roiling the Persian Gulf have escalated following a weekend attack on major oil sites in Saudi Arabia that the U.S. alleged Iran was responsible for — a charge Iran denies.

The crisis between Washington and Tehran stems from Trump’s pullout last year from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. He also re-imposed and escalated sanctions on Iran that sent the country’s economy into freefall.

The attack on Saudi Arabia, which set ablaze a crucial Saudi oil processing plant and a key oil field, was claimed by Yemen’s Iranian-allied Houthi rebels, who are at war with a Saudi-led coalition that is trying to restore Yemen’s internationally recognized government to power.

Trump declared Monday it “looks” like Iran was behind the explosive attack on the Saudi oil facilities. But he stressed that military retaliation was not yet on the table in response to the strike against a key U.S. Mideast ally.

Oil prices soared worldwide amid the damage in Saudi Arabia and fresh Middle East war concerns. But Trump put the brakes on any talk of quick military action — earlier he had said the U.S. was “locked and loaded” — and he said the oil impact would not be significant on the U.S., which is a net energy exporter.

The Saudi government called the attack an “unprecedented act of aggression and sabotage” but stopped short of directly pinning blame on Iran.

One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the U.S. was considering dispatching additional military resources to the Gulf but that no decisions had been made. The U.S. already has the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier battle group in the area, as well as fighter jets, bombers, reconnaissance aircraft and air defenses.

Trump, alternating between aggressive and nonviolent reactions, said the U.S. could respond “with an attack many, many times larger” but also “I’m not looking at options right now.”

American officials released satellite images of the damage at the heart of the kingdom’s Abqaiq processing plant and a key oil field, and two U.S. officials said the attackers used multiple cruise missiles and drone aircraft.

Private experts said the satellite images show the attackers had detailed knowledge of which tanks and machinery to hit within the sprawling Saudi oil processing facility at Abqaiq to cripple production. But “satellite imagery can’t show you where the attack originated from,” said Joe Bermudez, an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who examined the images.

The U.S. alleges the pattern of destruction suggested Saturday’s attack did not come from neighboring Yemen, as claimed by the Houthis there. A Saudi military alleged “Iranian weapons” had been used.

The Saudis invited the U.N. and other international experts to help investigate, suggesting there was no rush to retaliate.

For his part, Khamenei on Tuesday also reiterated Iran’s stance that if the U.S. returns to the nuclear deal, Tehran would consider negotiations.

“Otherwise, no talks will happen ... with the Americans,” he said. “Neither in New York nor anywhere” else.

___

Associated Press writer Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.

US shares info with Saudi Arabia that blames Iran for oil field attack: report

Iran was the staging ground for the weekend attacks on the massive Saudi Arabia oil field, according to U.S. intelligence that was shared with the kingdom, a report said.
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported that the intelligence report—that was not shared publicly—indicated that Iran raided the massive oil field with at least a dozen missiles and 20 drones.
The State Department did not immediately respond to an after-hours email from Fox News on Tuesday morning. The Journal's report said that a Saudi official indicated that the U.S. intelligence was not definitive. The official told the paper that the U.S. did not provide enough evidence to prove without a doubt that Tehran’s hand was involved.
President Trump has said the U.S. is “locked and loaded” and able to respond to the threat but also said he wants to avoid war. Iran has denied any involvement in the attack. Ahead of UN meeting, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said "there will be no talks with the US at any level," the Associated Press reported.
Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday, sparking huge fires and halting about half of the supplies from the world's largest exporter of oil. The attack was seen by some analysts as a Pearl Harbor-like event.
The fires led to the interruption of an estimated 5.7 million barrels in crude supplies, as Saudi officials said part of that would be offset with stockpiles.
Fox News' Alex Pappas contributed to this report

Durbin asked about prospects of Kavanaugh impeachment, says ‘get real’

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., was asked Monday about the prospects of Democrats taking up an effort to impeach Brett Kavanaugh from the Supreme Court and responded, “Get real,” according to a report.
Calls to impeach Kavanaugh came after an essay in the New York Times brought to light separate sexual misconduct allegations against him dating back to his time at Yale. The Times reported that the FBI did not investigate the claim.
The paper was forced to run an editor’s note and revised the essay after it was revealed that it left out that the accuser declined to be interviewed and her friends said she doesn’t recall the incident.
The report prompted 2020 Democrats to call for Kavanaugh's ouster. The new push to impeach Kavanaugh appeared to divide Democrats still eyeing an effort to impeach President Trump.
“We’ve got to get beyond this ‘impeachment is the answer to every problem,” Durbin said, according to Politico. “It’s not realistic. If that’s how we are identified in Congress, as the impeachment Congress, we run the risk that people will feel we’re ignoring the issues that mean a lot to them as families.”
Rep. Jerry Nadler, the New York Democrat and chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said the committee will ask Christopher Wray, the FBI director, about the investigation during a later hearing. Nadler stressed that his focus is on impeaching Trump.
A Kavanaugh impeachment would require a majority vote in the Democratic-controlled House, and two-thirds vote in the GOP-majority Senate.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., will reportedly file an impeachment resolution on Tuesday. She said he must be "held accountable for his actions."
Fox News' Gregg Re contributed to this report

NYT reporters behind Kavanaugh story suggest key information was removed by editors

The New York Times reporters behind the controversial piece on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh claimed Monday night that key details missing from the sexual misconduct allegation may have been removed from the original draft in the editing process.
Late Sunday, The New York Times walked back an explosive report about a resurfaced allegation of sexual assault by Kavanaugh from his college days. The piece by Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly was adapted from their forthcoming book, "The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation," and alleged that there was corroboration of an incident in which Kavanaugh, as a college student at Yale, exposed himself to a female classmate at a party.
The paper was forced to issue an update that included the significant detail that several friends of the alleged victim said she did not recall the purported sexual assault. The newspaper also stated for the first time that the alleged victim refused to be interviewed, and has made no other comment about the episode.
Pogrebin and Kelly said in an interview that information was included in their original draft of the piece.
"In your draft of the article, did it include those words that have since been added to the article?" MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell asked.
"It did," both Pogrebin and Kelly responded.
"So somewhere in the editing process, those words were trimmed," O'Donnell said in clarification.
Pogrebin then explained that The Times doesn't usually include names of victims and that she believed that when the editors removed the name, the crucial information that she didn't remember was also removed.
"So I think it was just sort of an editing, you know, done in the haste in the editing process," Pogrebin added.
"Were you involved in the decision to amend this and do the correction- the addition online to the piece?" O'Donnell followed.
"We discussed it," Pogrebin said. "We felt like there was so much heat, there's so much- everyone has been has been seizing on various aspects of this that we certainly didn't want it to be an issue anymore and we certainly never intended to mislead in any way. We wanted to give as full of a story as possible."
President Trump issued a full-throated call for resignations and changes in management at the paper over the essay during a fiery rally in Democratic-leaning New Mexico on Monday night.

Iran Nuke Deal Cartoons

On Strike! UAW workers walk out on GM

The United Auto Workers went on a nationwide strike against General Motors on Sunday night after contract talks broke off Sunday.

It is the first strike against GM in 12 years.

Talks will resume Monday morning.

Union officials say both sides are far apart in the talks, while GM says it has made significant offers.

UAW represents workers at 33 manufacturing sites and 22 parts warehouses across the country.

On Sunday, President Trump tweeted for the two sides to make a deal.

A person briefed on the bargaining told the Associated Press that General Motors has offered the UAW new products for two assembly plants that it had planned to close.

General Motors says it presented what it believes was a strong offer including improved wages and benefits and investments in eight facilities in four states.

The strike will affect GM plants in Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, New York, Texas and elsewhere in the U.S.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Beto O'Rourke hits Pete Buttigieg with expletive-fueled swipe over gun-control comments

Beto O’Rourke launched an expletive-fueled defense of his call Sunday to ban assault-style weapons and impose mandatory buybacks of AR-15s and AK-47s while also pushing back at critics -- including fellow 2020 Democrat Pete Buttigieg.
During last Thursday’s presidential debate, the former Texas congressman said, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47, and we’re not going to allow it to be used against your fellow Americans anymore.” Three days later, O’Rourke appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” where host Chuck Todd pointed out that there was “a lot of hand-wringing” about the presidential contender’s full-throated call on national TV for confiscating such rifles.
As O’Rourke had put the issue of gun violence at the center of his campaign effort, some fellow Democrats chastised him and were concerned that his statements may have made things harder for gun control supporters as they negotiate with President Trump on legislation to respond to this summer’s mass shootings.
After Todd pointed out that some Democrats were hesitant to support such bans, O’Rourke responded, “I think this just shows you how screwed up the priorities in Washington, D.C. are.”
He then brought up the 22 people were killed in a Walmart in his hometown of El Paso last month.
“Talking to those doctors and trauma room surgeons who treated those victims in El Paso, they said these are wounds of war—that high-impact, high-velocity round, when it hit their systems, just shredded everything inside of them,” O’Rourke said on Sunday. “I refuse to accept that, and I refuse to even acknowledge the politics, or the polling, or the fear of the NRA that has purchased the complicity and silence of members of Congress and this weak response to a real tragedy in America.”
Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” and agreed with Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., saying the clip of the former O’Rourke’s statement about AR-15s and AK-47s “will be played for years at Second Amendment rallies with organizations that try to scare people by saying Democrats are coming for your guns.” 
Buttigieg said, “Look, right now we have an amazing moment on our hands. We have agreement among the American people not just for universal backgrounds checks, but we have a majority in favor of red-flag laws, high-capacity magazines, banning the new sale of assault weapons. This is a golden moment to finally do something.”
Buttigieg went on to say, “When even this president and even [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell are at least are pretending to be open to reforms, we know that we have a moment on our hand. Let’s make the most of it and get these things done.”
O’Rourke pushed back in a tweet: “Leaving millions of weapons of war on the streets because Trump and McConnell are ‘at least pretending to be open to reforms’? That calculation and fear is what got us here in the first place. Let’s have the courage to say what we believe and fight for it.”
He later tweeted, “When candidates say, 'At least Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are pretending to be interested,' sh--, that is not enough. Neither is poll-testing your message. Gun violence is a life or death issue—and we have to represent the bold ideas of people all over the country.”
As O’Rourke made his call to take back the rifles on Thursday night, Trump warned at a Republican retreat in Baltimore, “Democrats want to confiscate guns from law-abiding Americans, so they are totally defenseless when somebody walks into their house.”
Trump promised that his party “will forever uphold the fundamental right to keep and bear arms,” which received loud applause.
Trump and White House aides have discussed several gun control measures with members of Congress, including steps to go after fraudulent buyers and boost mental health assistance. A formal announcement on Trump’s plan is expected as soon as this week.
Fox News' Ben Florance and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Behnam Ben Taleblu: Attack on Saudi oil facility shows Trump was right to pull out of Iran nuke deal

The devastating attack Saturday against a major oil facility in Saudi Arabia dramatically illustrates why the Iran nuclear deal that was accepted by the Obama administration and rejected by President Trump failed to end the Iranian threat to peace and stability in the Middle East.
While the nuclear deal put temporary restrictions on the Iranian nuclear program, it did absolutely nothing to stop Iran’s aggressive conventional and asymmetric military actions against its neighbors and threats against Israel. This is partly why President Trump ultimately withdrew from this deeply flawed agreement.
In fact, the nuclear deal aided Iranian military aggression and support of terrorist groups by lifting international economic sanctions against Iran and freeing up Iranian funds frozen by foreign banks. Iran has supported several terrorist groups in the region, including Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah based in Lebanon, the Palestinian group Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip, and the brutal regime of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
The attack Saturday on Saudi oil facilities – which temporarily cut Saudi oil production in half – was carried out by either drones or cruise missiles (or a combination of the two), according to news reports. About 5.7 million barrels of crude oil production were interrupted by the Saturday attack, amounting to more than 5 percent of the world’s daily oil supply.

Opinion

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a tweet Saturday that “Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia … Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.”
And President Trump tweeted Sunday night: “Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!”
The president notably refrained from saying who the U.S. government believes is responsible for the attack on Saudi Arabia, but U.S. officials previously pointed to Iran.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is playing a game of three-dimensional chess against the U.S. and its regional partners – a game aiming to induce weakness and irresolution in the face of the Iranian challenge.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels are claiming credit for the strike against the Saudi oil facilities. However, satellite photos released by the U.S. government showed at least “17 points of impact” that officials said indicated the attack came from the direction of Iran or Iraq rather than the Houthi’s home base of Yemen.
Iranian officials denied their government was responsible for the strikes against Saudi Arabia.
In late 2014, the Houthis burst forth from their stronghold in northern Yemen, conquered the capital city of Sanaa, and plunged the Arab world’s poorest country into deep chaos. Since then, humanitarian suffering caused by the Houthi insurgency has mushroomed across the nation on a medieval scale.
Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has led a multinational military coalition to restore the U.N.-backed government in Yemen. The Saudis prosecution of the war has made their nation the primary target of international criticism – even as Saudi bases, cities, airports and oil installations come under attack from Houthi rockets, missiles and drones.
Other foreign belligerents have mostly escaped blame.
Iran’s involvement in Yemen is more nefarious. Tehran seeks to co-opt the Houthi insurgency into a tool with which to bleed and bludgeon its regional rival, Saudi Arabia. This competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia is a struggle for both the sacred and profane: for leadership of the Muslim world, for individual Muslim hearts and minds, for the Middle East regional balance, and for oil.
Iran has provided the Houthis with anti-tank missiles, ballistic missiles of varying ranges, cruise missiles, and suicide drones – which can function as cruise missiles. As a result, Iran has been able to grow the long-arm of Houthi military capabilities, and at a low cost to Iran.
Iranian-supplied weapons allow the Houthi insurgents to strike at the Saudi heartland from a distance and respond to battlefield developments at a time and place of their own choosing.
In additions to the tweets from Pompeo and Trump,
There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.elsewhere on Twitter, there has been increased chatter about, and even video alleging, that the strikes on Saudi Arabia originated in Iraq. If that were the case, Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq, which are part of Tehran’s broad proxy network across the Middle East, would be to blame rather than the Houthis.
Should the thesis of Iraqi involvement hold, it would be a measure of the Houthis’ deference to Iran that they claimed credit for an attack they did not carry out.
It would also be an indicator of Tehran’s tolerance for risk and retaliation in places like Yemen – which is far away, unlike Iraq, which is right next door to Iran.
Conversely, should Iran have launched cruise missiles from its own territory – which is less likely – it would mean Tehran is confident that its adversaries would not respond using military force against the origin of the strikes.
While Iran is known as a ballistic missile powerhouse in the region, copies of its cruise missiles are increasingly winding up in the hands of terrorist groups, be they anti-ship variants with Hezbollah in Lebanon or land-attack cruise missiles with the Houthis in Yemen.
Either way, the launching of cruise missiles and/or drones at a vital artery of the international economy conveys a broader strategic point: Iran’s threats to oil shipping are not limited to the Strait of Hormuz, where over one-fifth of seaborne traded oil passes daily. This signifies that the regime is comfortable broadening the scope of its harassment from oil tankers at sea to oil installations on land. Consider this an attempt to make good on old threats.
With the blaze of Saudi oil facilities in hindsight, the priority for Washington should not be to covet a high-level meeting with the Islamic Republic on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City in the coming days. It must be how better to contest Iran’s asymmetric military capabilities, as well as those of its proxies and partners in the region.
Since May, Washington has been hardening and growing its military footprint in the region through enhanced deployments. This process, as well as tough sanctions, should continue.
Slowing economic pressure, recalling assets – or worse, talking to Tehran only about the nuclear issue – would replicate the mistakes that got the U.S. into the flawed 2015 nuclear deal, which in turn underwrote the expansion of Iran’s regional threat network.
The Trump administration should not make the same mistake as the Obama administration, and should instead continue to hold Iran accountable for its latest hostile actions.

NYT updates Kavanaugh 'bombshell' to note accuser doesn't recall alleged assault

The New York Times suddenly made a major revision to a supposed bombshell piece late Sunday concerning a resurfaced allegation of sexual assault by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh -- hours after virtually all 2020 Democratic presidential candidates had cited the original article as a reason to impeach Kavanaugh.
The update included the significant detail that several friends of the alleged victim said she did not recall the supposed sexual assault in question at all. The Times also stated for the first time that the alleged victim refused to be interviewed, and has made no comment about the episode.
The only first-hand statement concerning the supposed attack in the original piece, which was published on Saturday, came from a Clinton-connected lawyer who claimed to have witnessed it.
The Times' revision says: "Editors' Note: An earlier version of this article, which was adapted from a forthcoming book, did not include one element of the book's account regarding an assertion by a Yale classmate that friends of Brett Kavanaugh pushed his penis into the hand of a female student at a drunken dorm party. The book reports that the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident. That information has been added to the article."
The update came only after The Federalist's Mollie Hemingway, who reviewed an advance copy of the book, first flagged the article's omission on Twitter -- prompting other commentators to press the issue.
The Times did not immediately respond to an email from Fox News seeking comment.
The paper's editors' note, meanwhile, did little to stem a torrent of criticism late Sunday.

"Should I be surprised at this point that the NYT would make such an unforgivable oversight?"
— Mark Hemingway

"Should I be surprised at this point that the NYT would make such an unforgivable oversight?" asked RealClearInvestigations' Mark Hemingway.
Wrote the Washington Examiner's Jerry Dunleavy: "Crazy how the 'one element' that wasn’t included in the original article was the part where the alleged victim’s friends said she doesn’t remember it happening."

This undated photo shows Deborah Ramirez. Her uncorroborated allegations that Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her in college -- which came after she admitted to classmates that she was unsure Kavanaugh was the culprit, and after she spent several days talking to a lawyer -- were reported Sept. 23, 2018, by The New Yorker magazine. (Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence via AP)

"It’s important to point out that this correction almost certainly would have never occurred if conservative media folks like @MZHemingway  and others hadn’t obtained the copy of the actual book itself the same day the excerpt/article was released," author James Hasson said.
Throughout the day on Sunday, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke, Cory Booker and Julian Castro, among others, declared that Kavanaugh "must be impeached," citing the allegation.
The revitalized, longshot push to get Kavanaugh removed from the high court came as Democrats' apparent effort to impeach President Trump has largely stalled. Trump, for his part, suggested Sunday that Kavanaugh should sue for defamation.
The Times piece by Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, adapted from their forthcoming book, asserted that a Kavanaugh classmate, Clinton-connected nonprofit CEO Max Stier, "saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student."
The Times did not mention Stier's work as a Clinton defense attorney, or Stier's legal battles with Kavanaugh during the Whitewater investigation, and simply called him a "respected thought leader."
According to the Times, Stier "notified senators and the FBI about this account" last year during the Kavanaugh hearings, "but the FBI did not investigate and Mr. Stier has declined to discuss it publicly."
However, the Times' article also conspicuously did not mention that Pogrebin and Kelly's book found that the female student in question had denied any knowledge of the alleged episode.
"The book notes, quietly, that the woman Max Stier named as having been supposedly victimized by Kavanaugh and friends denies any memory of the alleged event," observed Mollie Hemingway. "Seems, I don’t know, significant."
The book reads: "[Tracy] Harmon, whose surname is now Harmon Joyce, has also refused to discuss the incident, though several of her friends said she does not recall it."
"Omitting these facts from the @nytimes story is one of worst cases of journalistic malpractice that I can recall," wrote the National Review's Washington correspondent, John McCormack, on Twitter.
McCormack wrote separately: "If Kavanaugh’s 'friends pushed his penis,' then isn’t it an allegation of wrongdoing against Kavanaugh’s 'friends,' not Kavanaugh himself? Surely even a modern liberal Yalie who’s been to one of those weird non-sexual 'naked parties' would recognize both the female student and Kavanaugh are both alleged victims in this alleged incident, barring an additional allegation that a college-aged Kavanaugh asked his 'friends' to 'push his penis.'"
The Times went on to note in the article that it had "corroborated the story with two officials who have communicated with Mr. Stier," but the article apparently meant only that the Times had corroborated that Stier made his claim to the FBI. No first-hand corroboration of the alleged episode was apparently obtained.
Nevertheless, Democrats announced a new effort to topple Kavanaugh. Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono -- who infamously said last year that Kavanaugh did not deserve a fair hearing because he might be pro-life -- said the Senate Judiciary Committee should begin an impeachment inquiry to determine whether Kavanaugh lied to Congress.
Impeaching Kavanaugh would require a majority vote in the Democratic-controlled House, and a highly unlikely two-thirds vote in the GOP-majority Senate would then be needed to remove him from the bench. No Supreme Court justice or president has ever been convicted by the Senate, although eight lower-level federal judges have been.
The long odds didn't stop 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls from joining in on the effort.
"I sat through those hearings," Harris wrote on Twitter. "Brett Kavanaugh lied to the U.S. Senate and most importantly to the American people. He was put on the Court through a sham process and his place on the Court is an insult to the pursuit of truth and justice. He must be impeached."
During the hearings, Harris strongly implied that she knew Kavanaugh had improperly discussed Special Counsel Robert Mueller's then-ongoing probe with a Trump-connected lawyer.
Harris provided no evidence for the bombshell insinuation, which went viral on social media and sent the hearing room into stunned silence, even as she directly accused Kavanaugh of lying under oath.
Castro and Warren echoed that sentiment and said Kavanaugh had committed perjury.
"It’s more clear than ever that Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath," Castro wrote. "He should be impeached. And Congress should review the failure of the Department of Justice to properly investigate the matter."
Warren wrote: "Last year the Kavanaugh nomination was rammed through the Senate without a thorough examination of the allegations against him. Confirmation is not exoneration, and these newest revelations are disturbing. Like the man who appointed him, Kavanaugh should be impeached."
O'Rourke claimed to "know" that Kavanaugh had lied under oath, and falsely said that the new accuser was not known to Senate Democrats or the FBI last year.
"Yesterday, we learned of another accusation against Brett Kavanaugh—one we didn't find out about before he was confirmed because the Senate forced the F.B.I. to rush its investigation to save his nomination," O'Rourke said. "We know he lied under oath. He should be impeached."
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., tweeted in part, "This new allegation and additional corroborating evidence adds to a long list of reasons why Brett Kavanaugh should not be a Supreme Court justice. I stand with survivors and countless other Americans in calling for impeachment proceedings to begin."
Amy Klobuchar stopped short of calling for impeachment, and instead posted a picture of Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford with the words, "Let us never forget what courage looks like."
Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, said he backed getting rid of Kavanaugh by any legal means available: "The revelations today confirm what we already knew: During his hearing, Kavanaugh faced credible accusations and likely lied to Congress. I support any appropriate constitutional mechanism to hold him accountable."
As the calls mounted, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., shot back Sunday afternoon on Twitter -- and made clear that Kavanaugh wasn't going anywhere.
"The far left’s willingness to seize on completely uncorroborated and unsubstantiated allegations during last year’s confirmation process was a dark and embarrassing chapter for the Senate," McConnell wrote.
He added: "Fortunately a majority of Senators and the American people rallied behind timeless principles such as due process and the presumption of innocence. I look forward to many years of service to come from Justice Kavanaugh."
The Times' piece also stated that well before Kavanaugh became a federal judge, "at least seven people" had heard about how he allegedly exposed himself to Deborah Ramirez at a party.
Ramirez had called classmates at Yale seeking corroboration for her story, and even told some of her classmates that she could not remember the culprit in the alleged episode -- before changing her mind and publicly blaming Kavanaugh "after six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney," the New Yorker reported last year in a widely derided piece.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, then led by Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote in an executive summary of its investigation that it contacted Ramirez’s counsel "seven times seeking evidence to support claims made in the New Yorker," but that "Ms. Ramirez produced nothing in response and refused a Committee request for an interview."
Late Sunday, Grassley's office called out the Times for omitting key details in the story published this weekend.
"@NYTimes did not contact Sen. Grassley’s office for this story. If they had, we would've reminded them of a few key public facts they omitted," Grassley's team wrote. "Despite 7 attempts by staff, Ms. Ramirez' lawyers declined to provide documentary evidence referenced in the article/witness accounts to support the claims. They also declined invitations for Ms. Ramirez to speak with committee investigators or to provide a written statement."
Additionally, the FBI separately reached out to nearly a dozen individuals to corroborate the allegations by Ford and Ramirez, and ultimately spoke to ten individuals and two eyewitnesses, but apparently found no corroboration.
The agency's investigation began after then-Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., called for a one-week delay in Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings so an independent agency could look into the claims against him. Flake said the FBI's probe needed to be limited in length to avoid derailing the proceedings with endless claims and probes going back to Kavanaugh's high school years.
Kavanaugh, predicted by Democrats during his confirmation process to be a hardline conservative, often sided with liberal justices during the Supreme Court's last term.
The president, meanwhile, accused the media of trying to influence Kavanaugh. He also went on to say that Kavanaugh should go on the offensive and take on the media for false statements.
"Brett Kavanaugh should start suing people for libel, or the Justice Department should come to his rescue. The lies being told about him are unbelievable. False Accusations without recrimination. When does it stop? They are trying to influence his opinions. Can’t let that happen!" he tweeted.
Grassley sent several criminal referrals to the Justice Department related to alleged lies submitted to Senate investigators during Kavanaugh's confirmation process -- which could be what the president meant when he wrote Sunday that the DOJ "should come to [Kavanuagh's] rescue."
One of those referrals was for now-disgraced attorney Michael Avenatti and one of his clients, Julie Swetnick, regarding a potential "conspiracy" to provide false statements to Congress and obstruct its investigation. Swetnick's credibility took a hit as she changed her story about Kavanaugh's purported gang-rape trains, and her ex-boyfriend went public to say she was known for "exaggerating everything."
Swetnick and Ramirez were just two of several women who had accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct during his confirmation process. Christine Blasey Ford notably testified that Kavanaugh attempted to sexually assault her at a party when they were teens, and dubiously asserted that the memory was "indelible" in her "hippocampus" -- although no witnesses could corroborate her ever-changing story -- even her close lifelong friend, Leland Keyser, who Ford said had attended the party.
Keyser, according to the Times reporters' new book, did not believe Ford's story -- and refused to change her mind, despite pressure from progressive activists and Ford's friends.
"It just didn't make any sense," Keyser said, referring to Ford's explanation of how she was assaulted at a party that Keyser attended, but could not recall how she got home.
Ford's attorney, Debra Katz, was quoted in a new book as saying that Ford was motivated to come forward in part by a desire to tag Kavanaugh's reputation with an "asterisk" before he could start ruling on abortion-related cases.
"In the aftermath of these hearings, I believe that Christine’s testimony brought about more good than the harm misogynist Republicans caused by allowing Kavanaugh on the court," Katz said. "He will always have an asterisk next to his name. When he takes a scalpel to Roe v. Wade, we will know who he is, we know his character, and we know what motivates him, and that is important.
"It is important that we know, and that is part of what motivated Christine."
The Federalist reported last week that Ford's father privately supported Kavanaugh's confirmation, and approached Ed Kavanaugh on a golf course to make his support clear.
Some claims that surfaced during Kavanaugh's confirmation fell apart within days. For example, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., received a call from an anonymous constituent who claimed that in 1985, two "heavily inebriated men" referred to as "Brett and Mark" had sexually assaulted a friend of hers on a boat.
The Twitter account belonging to the accuser apparently advocated for a military coup against the Trump administration. The constituent recanted the sexual assault claim on the social media site days later.
Fox News' Andrew Craft in Plano, Texas, Chad Pergram, and Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.

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