Democratic Presidential Candidates Are Calling for Brett Kavanaugh’s Impeachment

Kamala Harris says he “lied to the U.S. Senate and most importantly to the American people.”

Chip Somodevill/Getty

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On two separate occasions, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh exposed himself to classmates at Yale University in the 1980s, according to new reporting from New York Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly. 

The two published details of the incidents, one of which involved Deborah Ramirez, whose allegations were not fully investigated during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings in 2018, in their new book, The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation. The Times published an excerpt of the book on Saturday. In it, they say have found seven sources who were familiar with Ramirez’s allegations that Kavanaugh “pulled down his pants and thrust his penis at her” at a party. They also detail a previously unreported story that Kavanaugh attended another party “where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.”

Democratic presidential candidates including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), former U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke, and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro have called for Kavanaugh to be impeached.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Brett Kavanaugh “should never have been nominated,” and that he supports “any appropriate constitutional mechanism to hold him accountable.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), told ABC’s “This Week” that the FBI investigation into Kavanaugh was a “sham.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden has not commented on the new report. President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) rushed to Kavanaugh’s defense, with Trump suggesting the Department of Justice should get involved in a possible libel suit. (Needless to say, that’s not how libel law works.)

As the hashtags #KavanaughLied, #ImpeachKavanaugh, and #KavanaughResign trended on Twitter, others weighed in on the possibility that Kavanaugh perjured himself and the implications of his lifetime appointment.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate