Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faces fresh allegations
The US Senate Judiciary Committee is reviewing new allegations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Lawyer Michael Avenatti provided a statement from his client to the committee.
According to a document Mr Avenatti posted on Twitter, the woman alleges she witnessed Mr Kavanaugh “consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women in the early 1980s”.
The woman also made other accusations in her statement.
In a statement, Mr Kavanaugh said: “This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don’t know who this is and this never happened.”
Mr Kavanaugh has been accused of sexual misconduct by two other women, putting his nomination for the high court at risk.
He and one of the accusers, Christine Blasey Ford, will give evidence publicly on Thursday before the Judiciary Committee.
Mr Avenatti declined to expand on the allegation in an interview on ABC’s The View, saying he would not add detail beyond what was in the statement.
He also represents Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress who alleges she was paid to keep a sexual relationship with President Donald Trump quiet.
In evidence for Thursday’s Senate hearing, Mr Kavanaugh acknowledges drinking in high school with his friends, but says he has never done anything “remotely resembling” the sexual misconduct alleged by his chief accuser.
Mr Kavanaugh denies having a “sexual or physical encounter of any kind” with Ms Ford.
“I am innocent of this charge,” Mr Kavanaugh says.
In the written testimony released on Wednesday by the committee, Mr Kavanaugh says he has “never sexually assaulted anyone – not in high school, not in college, not ever”.
Ms Ford and Mr Kavanaugh are to give evidence about her allegations that Mr Kavanaugh held her down, tried to remove her clothes and covered her mouth at a drunken high school party in the 1980s.
Lawyers for Ms Ford say they have submitted sworn affidavits to the committee from four people who say she told them that Mr Kavanaugh had assaulted her in high school.
The four sworn affidavits are among the information the committee is considering on the eve of the testimony.
All four documents say that Ms Ford revealed the information well before President Donald Trump nominated Mr Kavanaugh to the high court in July.
They come from Ms Ford’s husband and three family friends, who say Ms Ford mentioned the incident in 2012, 2013, 2016 and 2017.
Two affidavits, from Ms Ford’s husband Russell Ford and from the coach of their son’s baseball team, say Ms Ford named Mr Kavanaugh as the alleged assailant.
In the other two, Ms Ford did not name Mr Kavanaugh but said she was assaulted by a federal judge.