Video from a 2015 Brett Kavanaugh speech may earn the Supreme Court nominee further scrutiny about his past after his nomination was placed in jeopardy by allegations that he attempted to rape Christine Blasey Ford during a house party in 1982.
In the speech before the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law, Kavanaugh said, in relevant part:
Fortunately, we had a good saying that we’ve held firm to to this day, as the dean was reminding me before the talk, which is, ‘What happens at Georgetown Prep, stays at Georgetown Prep.’ That’s been a good thing for all of us, I think.
A heavily-truncated clip of the speech immediately began making its way across Twitter after being tweeted by various high-profile users on the site like Kathy Griffin and Alyssa Milano.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) even shared the video, commenting on the Las Vegas-redolent line, “I can’t imagine any parent accepting this view. Is this really what America wants in its next Supreme Court Justice?” As of this writing, Warren’s tweet had been shared thousands of times and the original tweets highlighting the video clip had been shared tens of thousands of times–likely signaling yet another line of attack against Kavanaugh’s controversial Supreme Court nomination.
The eyebrow-raising comments were made during Kavanaugh’s famous “Judge as Umpire” speech and was part of Columbus Law School’s Saint John XXIII lecture series. During that same speech, Kavanaugh debuted his oft-repeated sports metaphor about what being a judge calls for–later rehashed during Kavanaugh’s opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“A good judge,” Kavanaugh said during his remarks at the beginning of his confirmation process, “must be an umpire — a neutral and impartial arbiter who favors no litigant or policy.”
During the 2015 speech, Kavanaugh spoke at length about his time Georgetown Prep, reminiscing about the sayings and slogans, as well as the heights and head-sizes of various teachers and coaches there.
At one point, Kavanaugh noted, “I myself am a product of Catholic schools in this area. I grew up in this area. One of the few judges on the D.C. Circuit who grew up in this area. I went to Mater Dei and Georgetown Prep. And our motto at Georgetown Prep was ‘To be men for others’–it was an all boys school–to be men for others.”
[Image via YouTube screengrab]
Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher
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