The US Supreme Court’s newest justice, Brett Kavanaugh, will not participate in the traditional walk down the courthouse steps following his investiture ceremony this week, due to security concerns, according to a statement issued on Friday by the US Supreme Court.
Kavanaugh’s investiture ceremony is scheduled to take place on Thursday. Typically, a new judge, along with the chief justice, walk together down the marble steps in front of the Supreme Court after the new judge is admitted.
However, according to court spokesperson Kathy Arberg, an exception is being made in Kavanaugh’s case “out of an abundance of caution due to security concerns.”
On October 6, the Senate voted by 50 to 48 in favor of installing the 53-year-old conservative judge on the nine-member top US court, a life position.
The vote put an end to weeks of bitter debate and protest after at least three women, including California criminal psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford, came forward with accusations that the judge had sexually assaulted them in the past. Kavanaugh denied the allegations, while US Donald President Trump repeatedly accused protesters of trying to “make Senators look bad.”
This weekend, Judy Munro-Leighton — who admitted to writing a letter under the alias Jane Doe — told federal investigators that she had falsely accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault because she was “angry” and wanted public attention.
“Under questioning by Committee investigators, Ms. Munro-Leighton admitted, contrary to her prior claims, that she had not been sexually assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh,” Senator Chuck Grassley wrote in a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray, describing her as a left-wing activist who was “decades older than Judge Kavanaugh.”
“The Committee is grateful to citizens who come forward with relevant information in good faith, even if they are not one hundred percent sure about what they know,” Grassley wrote in his letter to the FBI and DOJ.
“But when individuals intentionally mislead the Committee, they divert Committee resources during time-sensitive investigations and materially impede our work. Such acts are not only unfair; they are potentially illegal.”
According to a recent Harvard/Harris poll, most American women and men (about 55 percent) claim that Democrats were not genuinely concerned with the accusations of sexual assault made by Ford, but instead were using the allegations to gain political advantage.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
