Sen Ted Cruz cited sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as “teenage dating habits” during his opening remarks for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearing.
Mr Cruz made his remarks on Monday as the Senate Judiciary Committee began its hearings on whether to confirm Ms Jackson to the Supreme Court. Mr Cruz pledged to Ms Jackson that her hearing would not feature any “disgraceful behavior” akin to the allegations against Mr Kavanaugh.
“No one is going to inquire into your teenage dating habits,” he told the judge. “No one is going to ask you with mock severity ‘do you like beer?’”
Plenty of Republicans cited Mr Kavanaugh’s 2018 confirmation hearings during Ms Jackson’s confirmation. Christine Blasey Ford, who said she knew Mr Kavanaugh at the time, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Mr Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers.
Mr Kavanaugh furiously denied the allegations and was confirmed with 50 “yes votes” and 48 votes against him. The accusations angered plenty of conservatives at the moment and many of them have not forgotten the experience.
Sen Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who gave a furious tirade in 2018 on the committee at the time of Ms Ford’s allegations, specifically cited the Kavanaugh hearings when he said he would give Ms Jackson a fair hearing.
“It means that no Republican senator is going to unleash on you an attack about your character when the hearing is virtually over,” he said. He also alluded to fellow committee member Sen Dianne Feinstein of California, who was the ranking Democrat at the time of the hearings, for not initially revealing the allegations Ms Ford made about Mr Kavanaugh.
“None of us, I hope, have been sitting on information about you as a person for weeks or months,” he said.
Sen Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican who was chairman of the committee during the Kavanaugh hearings, cited how Democrats interrupted him during his remarks and noted how Republicans did not do the same to Chairman Dick Durbin.
“We won’t try to turn this into a spectacle based upon alleged process fouls,” he said. “Unlike the start to the Kavanaugh hearings, we didn’t have repeated interruptions of Chairman Durbin durings his openings statements like Democrats interrupted me for more than an hour during my opening statements on the Kavanaugh hearings.”
Sen Mike Lee of Utah also alluded to the Kavanaugh hearings during his opening remarks. saying he disliked how Democrats attacked parts of what he considered part of Mr Kavanaugh’s personal life.
“Engaging in the politics of personal destruction is not something we should ever aspire to,” he said. “It is something that has occurred in this committee in the context of Supreme Court nominations.”
