Kellyanne Conway: Don’t conflate the #MeToo movement and Kavanaugh allegations
Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway cautioned on Friday against conflating the sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh with the broader #MeToo movement, suggesting that the details of the former are too thin to be considered fact.
“Let’s not conflate the larger Me Too movement with whatever did or did not happen in the summer of 1982, 36 years ago, that was not spoken about for the first time ever until 30 years later— that judge Brett Kavanaugh has completely denied,” Conway said in an interview on CNN.
Christine Blasey Ford, a professor in California, has accused Kavanaugh of drunkenly groping her while pinning her down on a bed as a friend watched during a house party in Maryland in 1982. The two were in high school at the time. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation.
Both Ford and Kavanaugh have been asked to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee, although Ford has yet to agree to a specific time to appear. Through her lawyers, she has sought to negotiate certain conditions for her testimony, while the GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee has thus far remained insistent that she appear at a hearing on Monday.
Ford’s allegation has widely been seen in the context of the #MeToo movement, brought on as a wave of powerful and influential men from the entertainment, media and political sectors were prosecuted for or otherwise brought down by allegations of sexual misconduct. Some men Involved include Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, former NBC anchor Matt Lauer, comedian Louis C.K., actor Kevin Spacey and former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.).
Conway said she commends the women who have come forward in the movement, but added that many #MeToo cases were the result of one woman coming forward, leading to “others [coming] forward and [saying] thank you so much for coming forward because now I don’t feel alone in saying that person was a complete, he was just an awful person.”
“That’s what’s happened in most of these cases,” Conway continued. “I know it is not for lack of trying that people are trying to prove the same here, and have not. So we will have the testimony next week.”
Conway also said she believes Ford’s “laundry list of demands,” which includes pushing back her testimony from next Monday, not being in the same room as Kavanaugh and testifying only after Kavanaugh has done so, will hurt her rather than help her.
“If she wants to tell her story, then I would say the most pure thing to do would be for each of them to tell their story,” she said. “I think her best shot is to get there, raise your right hand and tell their story.”
