Fox News host Sean Hannity held a panel discussion on his show Tuesday night to discuss the recent interview Julie Swetnick gave to NBC News. Swetnick had previously signed a declaration submitted by her lawyer Michael Avenatti accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of being involved in gang rapes of girls when he was a high school student. Swetnick claimed in the same statement that she herself was a victim of such an attack at a party where Kavanaugh was present, but did not implicate Kavanaugh in her attack. During an NBC interview, Swetnick seemed to change her story, admitting that she never witnessed anyone else being raped, and that while she herself was raped, it was only after this happened that she assumed the same happened to others.
This revelation prompted criticism from Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz and legal analyst Gregg Jarrett.
“She swore under oath, subject to perjury and felony, that certain things happened,” Dershowitz said. “She then said they didn’t happen. And if she changed her view, any good prosecutor, if the evidence shows that she made it up under whole cloth, should be able to prosecute her and sentence her to prison.”
Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett agreed.
“Julie Swetnick would appear to be in legal jeopardy,” he said. “Her sworn statement is dramatically different than what she told NBC News. Jarrett then took some shots at Avenatti.
“She would be well advised to fire Michael Avenatti, the publicity-seeking carnival barker, and hire a real lawyer. And she’s going to need a good criminal defense attorney, I predict, because her story is completely disintegrating.”
The declaration stated that Kavanaugh had spiked the punch at parties in order to facilitate gang rapes, which took place when unsuspecting girls were brought into side rooms at parties, where multiple boys would wait on line outside the rooms to take turns having sex with them without consent. Swetnick claimed in the declaration that she saw Kavanaugh on such a line. In her interview, she failed to support her claim that Kavanaugh spiked the punch, only saying that she saw him hand drinks to girls. As for the alleged rapes, she clarified that she only saw Kavanaugh standing with a group of boys outside a room, and didn’t even think anything of it at the time. It wasn’t until after she herself was raped that she started thinking that this must have been what was going on.
NBC’s Kate Snow, who conducted the interview, said that Swetnick gave the names of four people who could corroborate her story. Snow said that two of them did not respond to requests for comment, one is dead, and the fourth said he didn’t remember Swetnick at all.
“I think the FBI ought to investigate every single one of her claims,” Dershowitz said.
[Image via Fox News screengrab]