Sen. Maize Hirono (D., Hawaii) said on Tuesday that a story about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh throwing ice at someone's face while he was in college shows why the FBI must conduct an investigation into his behavior.
CNN host John Berman asked the senator about a New York Times story, published Monday, that details a 1985 bar fight in which Kavanaugh was questioned by the police. Kavanaugh's friend Chris Dudley threw a glass bottle at someone's head and was arrested. Kavanaugh was accused of throwing ice at someone.
"I want to ask you about these new developments we found out overnight, these police documents that show that Brett Kavanaugh threw ice in someone's face during a bar fight when he was in college. Do you feel that is in anyway disqualifying for someone in the Supreme Court?" Berman asked.
"This is why we need an FBI investigation, because there are a lot of allegations and the reports really are about how he behaves when he is drunk," Hirono said. "So that is very relevant. And the portrayal of himself as practically a choir boy is contradicted by his roommate, for example, in high school and people in high school. This is why we need an FBI investigation, why we have been calling for one for what seems like months."
Hirono has been a vocal critic of Kavanaugh throughout his nomination process. Amid allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh, Hirono repeatedly said the judge doesn't get the presumption of innocence. The senator also cited Kavanaugh's judicial philosophy as a reason why she believes he is not credible.
"Some of his supporters will say during his testimony he admitted sometimes he drank too much. Couldn't this just be an example of sometimes he drank too much and, yes, he was in a bar fight, but he wasn't arrested," Berman said.
"It all goes to how he behaves when he's drunk. That's the crux of his aggressive behavior when he is drunk," Hirono said. "For someone to say I never did any of this when it is contradicted by people who knew him, one has to wonder. This is why the FBI needs to go talk to all these people and let the senators decide on Judge Brett Kavanaugh's credibility, candor–and I have to say–his temperament."
Chad Ludington, a classmate of Kavanaugh's at Yale who said he was present during the reported bar fight, gave his account on Monday night of what happened.
Hirono's questioning of Kavanaugh's "credibility" follows a series of sexual misconduct allegations against the nominee that, according to the accusers, occurred decades ago. Christine Blasey Ford told the Washington Post that Kavanaugh, then a junior in high school, attacked her when they were at a party in Maryland in the early 1980s. A second allegation came from a woman named Deborah Ramirez who accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself at a dorm party during his freshmen year at Yale. Another allegation was brought forth from a woman named Julie Swetnick, who is represented by anti-Trump lawyer Michael Avenatti. Swetnick claimed Kavanaugh committed a series of "gang rapes" when he was in high school. She offered no additional evidence or witnesses to support her allegations, and she backtracked on some of her initial claims in an interview Monday night.
Kavanaugh has denied all the allegations.