White House rips into reporter for ‘desperate and ridiculous’ attack on Kavanaugh for daring to reveal cops questioned the SCOTUS nominee over 1985 bloody bar fight during his time at Yale
- Brett Kavanaugh was questioned by police when he was at Yale over a bar fight in September 1985 after a UB40 concert
- Kavanaugh was accused of throwing ice on a bar patron during the incident
- He and four other men were questioned by New Haven Police but Kavanaugh was not arrested
- White House press secretary Sarah Sanders hit out at the NYT writer who revealed the report, calling it a ‘ridiculous story’
- Sanders also questioned the motivation behind the article by referring to a prior tweet from the writer in which she was critical of Kavanaugh’s nomination
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has slammed a New York Times reporter over a report revealing Brett Kavanaugh was questioned by police when he was at Yale over a bloody bar fight in 1985.
Kavanaugh was accused of throwing ice on a bar patron during the incident in September 1985 after a UB40 concert, according to a police report obtained by the NYT.
Sanders hit out at the reporter, Emily Bazelon, on Monday night by questioning what motivated the ‘ridiculous’ story.
‘Democrats desperately attack Judge Kavanaugh for throwing ice during college. What motivated New York Times reporter to write this ridiculous story? Throwing ice 33 years ago, or her opinion of Judge Kavanaugh in July?’ Sanders tweeted.
Sanders linked to a prior tweet from the reporter, who is a Yale law school graduate, in which she was critical of Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination.
‘As a @YaleLawSch grad & lecturer, I strongly disassociate myself from tonight’s praise of Brett Kavanaugh. With respect, he’s a 5th vote for a hard-right turn on voting rights and so much more that will harm the democratic process & prevent a more equal society,’ Bazelon tweeted in July.
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was questioned by police when he was a student at Yale over an off-campus bar fight in 1985
The report that prompted Sanders’ outburst revealed that Kavanaugh and four other men were questioned by New Haven Police over the 1985 incident but Kavanaugh was not arrested.
The altercation occurred at a bar called Demery’s following a UB40 concert when Kavanaugh was an undergraduate at Yale.
The victim, Dom Cozzolino, told police he had been hit in the ear with a glass by Kavanaugh’s friend and Yale basketball player, Chris Dudley.
Cozzolino was treated in hospital for his injuries after he was left bleeding from his ear, according to the police report.
Kavanaugh reportedly did not want to say if he threw the ice or not and Dudley denied the accusation.
One of the men who was among the group of people drinking with Kavanaugh at the bar prior to the incident was his Yale classmate Charles ‘Chad’ Ludington.
Ludington, who issued a statement on Sunday accusing Kavanaugh of lying about his extent of drinking in college, said the fight broke out after their group mistook the victim as UB40’s lead singer Ali Campbell.
He said they were trying to figure out if it was him when he noticed them staring and aggressively asked them to stop.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has slammed a New York Times reporter over a report revealing Brett Kavanaugh was questioned by police at Yale
Ludington said Kavanaugh then ‘threw his beer at the guy’, before adding that ‘the guy swung at Brett’.
Sanders hit out at the reporter, Emily Bazelon, on Monday night by questioning what motivated the ‘ridiculous’ story
Ludington claimed that Dudley then ‘took his beer and smashed it into the head of the guy, who by now had Brett in an embrace. I then tried to pull Chris back, and a bunch of other guys tried to pull the other guy back.
‘I don’t know what Brett was doing in the melee, but there was blood, there was glass, there was beer and there was some shouting, and the police showed up.’
Details of the bar fight first came to light after Ludington issued the statement Sunday in which he vaguely referred to the incident.
‘On one of the last occasions I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man’s face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail,’ Ludington said.
Ludington, who now teaches at North Carolina State University, described Kavanaugh as ‘a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker’ at college.
He accused the Supreme Court nominee of being untruthful in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the extent of his drinking in college.
Kavanaugh, pictured at his Yale graduation, was questioned by police over the 1985 incident but was not arrested
The altercation occurred at a bar called Demery’s (above) following a UB40 concert. The bar closed in 1994 and was a known spot for Yale students
The victim, Dom Cozzolino, told police he had been hit in the ear with a glass by Kavanaugh’s friend and Yale basketball player, Chris Dudley (left). Kavanaugh’s Yale classmate Charles ‘Chad’ Ludington (right) also said he was there
In addition to being a ‘frequent’ and ‘heavy drinker’, Ludington said Kavanaugh was often ‘belligerent and aggressive’ when drunk.
‘On many occasions I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption, not all of which was beer,’ he said.
‘When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive.’
Ludington said he has since made contact with the FBI because he believes Kavanaugh downplayed the ‘degree and frequency’ of his drinking during the Senate hearing.
‘I can unequivocally say that in denying the possibility that he ever blacked out from drinking, and in downplaying the degree and frequency of his drinking, Brett has not told the truth,’ he said.
During the hearing on Thursday, Kavanaugh insisted that he had never blacked out from drinking alcohol.
His chief accuser, Dr Christine Blasey Ford, has claimed that Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were intoxicated when he allegedly sexually assaulted her.
Ford, a California university professor, detailed her claims during the hearing that Kavanaugh tried to rape her at a party in 1982 when the two were still high school teenagers.
Kavanaugh’s drinking has come under intense scrutiny since Ford’s accusations became public.
Kavanaugh was accused of throwing ice on a bar patron during the incident in September 1985 after a UB40 concert, according to a police report obtained by the NYT
When he was pressed on Thursday at his hearing about his drinking habits in high school, Kavanaugh said: ‘My friends and I, boys and girls. Yes, we drank beer. I liked beer. I still like beer… The drinking age as I noted, was 18, so the seniors were legal. Senior year in high school, people were legal to drink.’
While he admitted in his congressional testimony that there were probably occasions during his time at Georgetown Prep that he had consumed ‘too many beers,’ a combative Kavanaugh denied he had ever gotten out of control or acted inappropriately toward women.
‘I liked beer,’ he said. ‘But I did not drink beer to the point of blacking out, and I never sexually assaulted anyone.’
When Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) pressed if he ever drank so much he blacked out, he replied: ‘Have you?’ After a break in the proceedings, he came back and apologized to Klobuchar.
It comes as Deborah Ramirez, who was the second woman to come forward with allegations against Kavanaugh from their time at Yale University, spoke to FBI agents on Sunday as part of their investigation.
In her interview with agents, Ramirez detailed her allegation that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party in the early 1980s.
Ramirez alleges that Kavanaugh exposed his penis to her during a drunken party at a Yale University dormitory when they were undergraduates.
Kavanaugh has denied both Ford’s and Ramirez’s allegations.
Michael Avenatti, the attorney for a third Kavanaugh accuser, Julie Swetnick, said in an email to Reuters that his client has not been contacted by investigators.
His chief accuser, Dr Christine Blasey Ford, has claimed that Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were intoxicated when he allegedly sexually assaulted her
Deborah Ramirez (left), who was the second woman to come forward with allegations against Kavanaugh, spoke to FBI agents on Sunday as part of their investigation. Julie Swetnick (right), the third accuser, has not been contacted by the FBI
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