GOP senator’s hometown paper rips him for ‘medieval attitude toward all women’

The Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board ripped Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) in a fiery editorial for his part in a “despicable attack” launched on Julie Swetnick, the third woman to publicly come forward with sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

“The despicable attack launched by Sen. Orrin Hatch and the Senate Judiciary Committee — more precisely, the Republicans on that committee — on one of the women who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault is a textbook example of why more victims do not come forward,” the board wrote on Thursday.

{mosads} “Worse, it betrays a positively medieval attitude toward all women as sex objects who cannot be believed or taken seriously,” the board continued.

Swetnick has alleged that Kavanaugh attended a party where she was drugged and attacked by a series of men in a “gang rape.”

The editorial blasted Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and Hatch for the way they have gone after Swetnick, including releasing a letter from a former acquaintance who alleged having had a relationship with the accuser.

Swetnick’s attorney, Michael Avenatti, has denied the allegations in the letter as “false.” Avenatti is also the lawyer for adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.

“What we now know for sure is that Hatch and others working for the Judiciary Committee have, without question, tried to slime one of Kavanaugh’s accusers in a way that is widely, and accurately, described as ‘slut-shaming,’” the editorial concluded.

“Except it is Hatch and his allies who should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.”

The Salt Lake Tribune is Utah’s biggest newspaper.

The editorial arrives as Kavanaugh continues to face controversy surrounding sexual assault allegations from multiple accusers, each of which he has strongly denied.