White House counselor Kellyanne Conway brought up her own history of sexual assault Sunday in defending Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
“I feel very empathetic for victims of sexual assault, sexual harassment and rape,” she said on CNN, and appeared to get emotional briefly. “I’m a victim of sexual assault.”
CNN “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper noted Conway rarely discusses any personal history.
{mosads}“I’ve just had it,” Conway said. She argued that the ongoing Senate debate about Kavanaugh is not a “meeting of the Me Too movement,” which over the last year has seen multiple women coming forward to accuse men in positions of power in politics, media, and other industries of sexual misconduct.
“Let’s not compare Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, and a few others, to what’s happened here,” she said. “If we’re going to have a national conversation, stop judging the victims and perpetrators according to their politics.”
Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote to the Supreme Court position he was nominated to by President Trump is pending a one-week FBI investigation into allegations that he assaulted at least one woman in the 1980s.
Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that Kavanaugh held her down, covered her mouth and attempted to remove her clothing without consent while they were both in high school. The FBI is reportedly also investigating at least one other woman’s allegations against Kavanaugh.
Conway also said Sunday that Twitter and the media should not “bring Trump into everything,” specifically her revelation of her history of sexual assault. Trump has a record of multiple women accusing him of sexual misconduct.
“People on Twitter and elsewhere are saying right now, ‘oh how can she work for Donald Trump?’ I work for President Trump because he’s so good to the women who work for him,” she said. “I don’t want to hear it from anybody.”
–This report was updated on Oct. 1 at 7:00 a.m.