Sen. Jeff Flake, minutes after he announced he will support Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, was confronted at the US Capitol Friday morning by two women who say they are sexual assault survivors.
The Arizona Republican, a key swing vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee, was stopped in a Senate elevator on his way to the panel’s vote on whether to recommend Kavanaugh and excoriated by two woman who wanted to know why he was voting yes.
Flake was visibly uncomfortable. He quietly listened to the women and alternated between making eye contact with them and looking down at the ground.
“Don’t look away from me. Look at me and tell me that it doesn’t matter what happened to me. That you will let people like that go into the highest court of the land,” one of the women said.
Flake did not address the two women’s questions directly, but said, “thank you.”
He then told reporters, “I need to go to the hearing. I just issued a statement. I’ll be saying more as well. No, there have been a lot of questions here, and I don’t want to ask you.”
Kavanaugh has been accused by Christine Blasey Ford of sexually assaulting her decades ago. Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegation.