Presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) called for a new investigation into the latest sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Tuesday.
Harris asked House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) in a letter to establish a task force to investigate the allegations and look into whether the then-Supreme Court nominee lied to Congress during his testimony last year.
{mosads}The letter comes after Nadler dismissed calls for Kavanaugh’s impeachment, arguing that the panel was too tied up with its investigation into President Trump.
“I understand that the House Judiciary Committee has limited resources and many other responsibilities,” Harris wrote in the letter. “However, in the past, congressional committees have dedicated resources and established structures to pursue serious cases of misconduct—including by creating a task force and retaining outside counsel to help lead impeachment inquiries.”
The New York Times reported last week that a former Kavanaugh classmate said he saw an incident in which the now-Supreme Court justice exposed himself at a party and that other students pushed Kavanaugh’s genitals into the hand of a female student, apparently without her consent. However, the publication issued a correction on Monday, saying that friends of the woman allegedly involved in the incident say she does not remember it.
Harris joined a number of other 2020 presidential hopefuls, including former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) over the weekend in calling for Kavanaugh’s impeachment.
Meanwhile, other candidates, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), called for further investigations into the matter.