Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Donald Trump, revealed she is a victim of sexual assault herself, in the wake of hearings surrounding Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
In a Sept. 30 interview with CNN, Conway defended the nomination of Kavanaugh and, at the same time, derided what she called “hypocrisy” from Democrats over the issue.
“You have Senate Judiciary Committee members who refused to remove Bill Clinton from office after he received oral sex in the Oval Office and lied about it to a grand jury as president of the United States,” she said. “The hypocrisy is ridiculous.”
Days ago, Senate Republicans agreed to delay the vote for one week to allow for a limited FBI investigation into allegations brought by professor Christine Ford. Conway said she doubted the investigation would change the fiercely partisan votes over those allegations.
“And if not one Senate Judiciary Committee member changes his or her vote because of what they learned from the FBI investigation, that tells you all you need to know about what the president and Judge Kavanaugh has said is a sham,” she said.
In her opening remarks, Conway said she feels great empathy for victims of sexual assault.
“I feel very empathetic, frankly, for victims of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and rape,” she said, adding, “I’m a victim of sexual assault.” She did not elaborate further on her own experience.
She continued by suggesting victims were wrongfully pointing their anger at Republican supporters of Kavanaugh.
“It’s not a meeting of the #MeToo movement,” she said. “Let’s just be honest what this is about—it’s raw partisan politics.”
Republican Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) at the last minute called for an FBI investigation to be conducted as a condition for his vote for Kavanaugh on the Senate floor. As he was heading to the hearing on Sept. 28, he was confronted by multiple sexual assault victims.
“I want [to say to] those women who were sexually assaulted, the other day who were confronting Jeff Flake—God bless them, but go blame the perpetrator,” Conway said. “That’s who is responsible for our sexual assaults. The people who commit them.”
