"All made up, it was fabricated and it’s a disgrace," President Donald Trump said of the sexual misconduct allegations made against newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Monday morning on the South Lawn of the White House before heading to Florida.
This is a sharp pivot from Trump's position a few days ago, when he told reporters that Christine Blasey Ford, one of the women who testified under oath that Kavanaugh tried to assault her at a high school party decades ago, was a "compelling" and "very credible witness".
Trump now insists that Kavanaugh was "caught up in a hoax that was set up by the Democrats," according to the Associated Press. He also believes that many Democrats will vote Republican in the upcoming midterm elections out of anger for how Kavanaugh has been treated.
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False reports are rare, ranging from 2 to 10% of all reported sexual assaults, according to a commonly cited 2010 study published in the journal Violence Against Women.
One of Ford’s attorneys, Debra Katz, told Capitol Hill correspondent Kasie Hunt on MSNBC’s Kasie DC, that Ford was forced to relocate due to the extensive death threats she is still receiving. Ford’s email has also been hacked, and she’s been impersonated online.
"This has been terrifying," Katz said. "Her family has been through a lot. They are not living at home. It's going to be quite some time before they're able to live at home."