Sexual Assault Survivors Confront a Senator Voting Yes for Kavanaugh
Sexual assault survivors personally confronted Senator Jeff Flake after he said he'd vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh this morning. Flake, who is a republican from Arizona and considered a key swing vote, made his announcement less than 24 hours after both Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh testified on her allegations that the Supreme Court nominee sexually assaulted her in high school.
Two women stopped Flake in the Capitol building as he was heading to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where the panel would vote on whether or not to confirm Kavanaugh's nomination today. Videos show the women confronting Flake in an elevator, rebuking his support for the Supreme Court nominee and sharing their own stories of sexual assault in support of Dr. Ford.
The first woman was Ana Maria Archila, the co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy. She told Flake:
"I told the story of my sexual assault. I told it because I recognized in Dr. Ford’s story that she is telling the truth. What you are doing is allowing someone who actually violated a woman to sit on the Supreme Court. This is not tolerable. You have children in your family. Think about them. I have two children. I cannot imagine that for the next 50 years they will have to have someone in the Supreme Court who has been accused of violating a young girl. What are you doing, sir?"
A second woman, identified by a correspondent for The Hill as Maria Gallagher from Westchester, NY, added:
"I was sexually assaulted and nobody believed me. I didn’t tell anyone, and you’re telling all women that they don’t matter, that they should just stay quiet because if they tell you what happened to them you are going to ignore them. That’s what happened to me, and that’s what you are telling all women in America, that they don’t matter. They should just keep it to themselves because if they have told the truth, you’re just going to help that man to power anyway.
"That’s what you’re telling all of these women. That’s what you’re telling me right now. Look at me when I’m talking to you. You are telling me that my assault doesn’t matter, that what happened to me doesn’t matter, and that you’re going to let people who do these things into power. That’s what you’re telling me when you vote for him. 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 and tell everyone what they can do to their bodies."
Read the full transcript of the exchange at The New York Times.
Flake stayed silent and nodded during the women's comments, and he and his aides reportedly told them "thank you" when they were done, seemingly in an attempt to send them off. "Saying thank you is not an answer, this is about the future of our country, sir," Archila added.
After being pressed by reporters to give a legitimate response, Flake said from the elevator, "No, I need to go to the hearing. I just issued a statement."
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