Biden not joining other Dem candidates in calling for Kavanaugh impeachment
by
Emily Larsen | September 16, 2019
Joe Biden is not joining other Democrats in demanding the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, calling for handling the matter "the right way" with an investigation into how sexual misconduct allegations against the judge were investigated.
"We must follow the evidence to wherever it leads,"
Biden said in a statement Sunday. "Doing this the right way is critically important in getting the truth and restoring the American people's faith in their government."
Earlier on Sunday, several Democratic presidential hopefuls, including California Sen. Kamala Harris, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, called for Kavanaugh's impeachment in wake of a
New York Times story that reported a previously unknown sexual misconduct allegation. Max Stier, who was a classmate of Kavanaugh's at Yale, said he remembered an instance where Kavanaugh had his pants down during a dorm party, with friends forcing his penis at a female student who inadvertently touched it. The female student, however, has not spoken publicly about the allegation, and her friends said that she does not remember the incident.
"We need to get to the bottom of whether the Trump Administration and Senate Republicans pressured the FBI to ignore evidence or prevented them from following up on leads relating to Justice Kavanaugh's background investigation, subsequent allegations that arose, and the truthfulness of his testimony to the Senate," Biden said.
Kavanaugh was confirmed in October 2018 after a grueling confirmation process that largely centered on decades-old sexual misconduct allegations from Christine Blasey Ford, who attended a high school near Kavanaugh, and Deborah Ramirez, who attended Yale at the same time as Kavanaugh. Ford said that when they were in high school, Kavanaugh pinned her to the bed and covered her mouth, while Ramirez said that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a college dorm party. Kavanaugh denied the allegations.
"This weekend's report in the
New York Times raises again profoundly troubling questions about the integrity of the confirmation process that put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court in the first place," Biden said in the statement. "The women who continue to come forward, as Dr. Blasey Ford courageously did, deserve to be treated with dignity and be listened to. It takes enormous courage for a woman to come forward, under the bright lights of millions of people watching, and relive a traumatic memory."
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...ndidates-in-calling-for-kavanaugh-impeachment