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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
CNN’s Scott Jennings once again took liberals to the cleaners on the Abrego Garcia case, the ‘Maryland man...
