Cramer questions if allegations should disqualify Kavanaugh ‘even if it’s all true’

Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who’s running in a top Senate race, questioned whether the sexual assault allegations should “disqualify” Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh “even if it’s all true.”

In an interview with KX4 TV station in North Dakota on Monday, Cramer called Christine Blasey Ford’s alleged sexual assault “tragic” but noted that the allegations are from more than three decades ago, when she and Kavanaugh were both teenagers.

Ford has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a high school party in the 1980s. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations levied against him, saying in a Fox New interview Monday night that “the truth is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone.”

“What if something like what Dr. Ford described happened — it’s tragic, it’s terrible, it should never happen in our society,” Cramer said in the Monday interview.

“But what if 36 years of a record where there’s nothing like that again, but instead there’s a record of a perfect gentleman, of an intellect, a stellar judge,” he continued.

“Even if it’s all true, does it disqualify — it certainly means he did something bad 36 years ago, but does it disqualify him from the Supreme Court?”

When asked about his thoughts if Ford’s allegations were proven true, showing that Kavanaugh lied about it, Cramer said that would be a scenario that would disqualify Kavanaugh.

“I think that disqualifies him, if it’s found that he knew, that he recalls it, knew that it happen and lies about it, then I think that would disqualify him,” he said. “Because that’s something he does today, not 36 years ago.”

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s (D-N.D.) campaign condemned Cramer’s comments in the Monday interview in a statement to The Washington Post.

Cramer’s Monday interview comes days after the GOP congressman called the allegations “absurd.”

“These are teenagers who evidently were drunk, according to her own statement. They were drunk. Nothing evidently happened in it all, even by her own accusation. Again, it was supposedly an attempt or something that never went anywhere,” Cramer said in an interview last week on “The Jarrod Thomas Show.”

In Monday’s interview, Cramer explained that he was referring to the “absurdity” of the timing and the comparisons to Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual misconduct against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991.

“The timing of it’s absurd. The absurdity is the comparison of Anita Hill. The absurdity is to compare the Kavanaugh situation and Clarence Thomas situation,” Cramer said on Monday.

“My point was there was no type of intercourse or anything like that. That’s what I meant nothing happened.”