Flake confronted by sexual assault victims on way to committee vote

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) on Friday was confronted by protesters on his way to the Senate judiciary Committee vote on whether to advance Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination to the Senate floor for a confirmation vote.

“What you are doing is allowing someone who actually violated a woman to sit on the Supreme Court … You have children in your family. Think about them,” one protester yelled as people crowded around the doors of the elevator Flake was trying to get on, keeping the door from closing.

{mosads}Moments before the encounter, Flake announced he would be voting to confirm Kavanaugh despite multiple allegations of sexual assault against the nominee.

Through tears, one protester told Flake that she was sexually assaulted and no one believed her. 

“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,” she said to Flake, who stood in the corner of the elevator looking down.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” the woman yelled. “You’re telling me that my assault doesn’t matter, that what happened to me doesn’t matter, that you’re going to let people who do these things into power.”

In a statement, Flake said he heard compelling testimony from Christine Blasey Ford, who alleges Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and groped her at a high school party in the early 1980s. But he said he also heard a persuasive response from Kavanaugh, who testified after Ford at Thursday’s hearing.

“I wish that I could express the confidence that some of my colleagues have conveyed about what either did or did not happen in the early 1980s, but I left the hearing yesterday with as much doubt as certainty,” Flake said.