WASHINGTON _ A staffer for U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said her boss "won't even consider voting yes" for President Donald Trump's Supreme Court pick, a conservative activist tweeted last week.
"She's in such a red state, but she doesn't even try. She doesn't give a sh-- and I love it," the staffer named Moriah reportedly said.
The problem is there is no one by that name working for McCaskill's Senate office or her campaign.
In fact, payroll records show no one by that name working in any of the 100 U.S. Senate offices.
That didn't stop Republican Senate candidate Josh Hawley from using the tweet to go after McCaskill.
The next day, alongside Vice President Pence at a rally in St. Louis, Hawley told the crowd that McCaskill's staff on Capitol Hill was saying there's no chance she'd ever vote for Brett Kavanaugh, Trump's nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Hawley didn't stop there. He re-tweeted the activist's tweet, adding his own commentary: "This is incredible. @clairecmc only one way to make this right. Pledge NOW to vote for Judge #Kavanaugh"
Hawley has called Kavanaugh's nomination "the defining issue" of the campaign. He's challenged McCaskill to a debate over it, even though he has yet to officially win his party's nomination.
McCaskill's rejection of Kavanaugh _ especially if a staffer had unwittingly revealed she didn't "give a sh--" what her red-state constituents think _ would help him make the case to voters that she's an out-of-touch liberal, and not the moderate she claims to be.
But on Monday, Hawley's campaign said he never asserted the tweet was true.
He was citing a report, said Kelli Ford, Hawley's campaign spokeswoman.
"As Josh said in his original tweet, it's easy to put all of this to rest _ pledge now to vote for Judge Kavanaugh. But she won't even meet with Kavanaugh or outline what she wants to see in a Supreme Court justice," Ford said.
"This is just typical of Senator McCaskill," she said. "Every time there is an issue that matters to Missourians, she claims to be open to supporting what Missourians actually want, but she inevitably comes down on the side of Chuck Schumer and her party."
Janae Stracke posted her tweet about the alleged McCaskill staffer's comments on Wednesday.
Stracke is national field director for Concerned Women for America, a conservative group that recently launched "Women for Kavanaugh," a grassroots effort to push for his confirmation.
Stracke told The Kansas City Star she was at a judiciary hearing about rape kit backlogs because her boss was speaking on the panel. She said she overheard the conversation behind her between a woman who introduced herself as Moriah and a man named Brennan or Brendan.
"They had just met," Stracke said. "It was a gentleman sitting across the aisle from her. That's how I got the name Moriah because they had just met."
Stracke said it caught her ear when they mentioned Kavanaugh's name. She described the woman as in her 20s and Caucasian.
"This person said, yeah (McCaskill) usually carries her own bags, but since she broke her rib I carry them now," Stracke recalled. "And they joked that she should put that on her resume: Bag carrier for Claire McCaskill."
Stracke sent The Star a screen shot from the hearing that she said shows a partial view of Moriah's face. To her knowledge, none of her co-workers at the hearing heard the conversation, but they did see the woman, she said.
"Of course it's always possible that I misinterpreted something," Stracke said. "I wish I had engaged her in conversation so there wasn't any question about that. I wish I could say for certain, 'You know, I talked with her and here's what I know for a fact.' I didn't have hesitancy (about tweeting) because I know what I heard ... it was really shocking."
McCaskill's office said the woman in the photo is unequivocally not a member of the McCaskill organization.
There's no one that works for the senator by the name Moriah, as a staffer or intern, her office said.
"It is simply not true," said Drew Pusateri, a spokesman for McCaskill's Senate office.
"It is not a campaign staffer or anyone associated with the campaign," said Meira Bernstein, a spokeswoman for McCaskill's campaign.
McCaskill has never served on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held the hearing where Stracke said she overheard the conversation. In fact, McCaskill was attending a Senate Homeland Security hearing that started at the same time. She's the top-ranking Democrat on Homeland Security, and was visible on the video feed the entire time.
After being told that McCaskill's office and campaign had stated that the woman in the photo was not anyone who worked for McCaskill, Stracke said she's still confident about what she heard and has no regrets about tweeting.
"I guess it's my word against theirs so I guess there's nothing I could say. I have no reason to make that up," she said. "Why would I make up a name when obviously it could be checked? Maybe I misheard, but why would I make something up? ... I don't know if she could have volunteered with her before or if she was making it up to impress the guy she was talking to."
Stracke said McCaskill should clarify her position on Kavanaugh to clear up any confusion.
McCaskill has said publicly that it's not realistic in a state such as Missouri to make a purely political decision about a Supreme Court nominee, since she's sure to get pummeled by one side or the other, whatever her choice.
She told The Star earlier this month that she plans to use the same criteria she's used to vet most of the president's nominations.
"I've voted for 78 percent of (Trump's) judicial nominations," McCaskill said.
"So it's a matter of going over his written work, going over his speeches, going over his resume. We will wait, obviously," the senator said.
McCaskill's public statements she's made on the record still reflect her thinking on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination, said Pusateri, her Senate spokesman.
