In summary
Running to unseat fellow Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein, state Sen. Kevin de León continued to criticize her response to a constituent’s accusation of sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
State Sen. Kevin de León, a Democrat who is challenging U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s re-election this fall, continues to assail her response to a constituent’s accusation of sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, saying the explanation that emerged over the weekend didn’t mollify his objection.
“I don’t believe it was handled correctly,” de León said today in an interview with CALmatters.
Feinstein learned of the woman’s allegation in July but did not reveal it until last week, when the Intercept reported that Feinstein had a letter describing the alleged assault that she did not share with her Senate colleagues. Feinstein said she was honoring the anonymity her constituent requested, and had referred the issue to federal investigators.
De León—who last week called Feinstein’s approach a “failure of leadership”—said that if he were in Feinstein’s situation, he would have shared a redacted version of the letter with fellow Judiciary Committee members.
“I believe that Christine Ford’s confidentiality could have been kept and at the same time this issue could have been dealt with,” he said. “But it was neither. And it wasn’t until the pressure mounted, because of the press, because of the leaks, that (Feinstein) started acting.”
Ford, a psychology professor from Palo Alto, went public with her account on Sunday, telling the Washington Post that a drunken Kavanaugh attacked her during a party when they were high school students in Maryland in the 1980s. She said he pinned her down on a bed, attempted to take off her clothes and covered her mouth when she tried to scream—allegations Kavanaugh denies.
Ford also said that although she reported the incident to her congressional representatives in July, she wanted to remain anonymous because she feared that going public would wreak too much havoc in her life. She eventually decided to tell her story to the Post, she said, because she was concerned her identity would be exposed in an inaccurate story.
Ford’s attorney told the New York Times that Feinstein’s staff remained in touch with Ford throughout August to see if she wanted to go public; she didn’t. Ford was happy with how Feinstein handled the situation, the lawyer said in numerous media interviews Monday.
De León’s contention that Feinstein should have handled the letter differently amounts to pure campaign politics, said her longtime consultant Bill Carrick.
“He is a classic losing candidate trying to create an issue out of nothing,” Carrick said. “Victims themselves should have the ultimate say-so on whether they go public or not. The idea that ‘redacted’… is not a violation of confidentiality is kind of silly.”
De León won the California Democratic Party endorsement this summer but trails Feinstein in fundraising and polls. He is challenging the Democratic stalwart from the left under California’s nonpartisan election system.
De León’s criticism of Feinstein has raised some hackles in Sacramento, where he was the leader of the state Senate during a sexual harassment scandal that rocked the statehouse. De León said in the fall that he had no knowledge that then-Sen. Tony Mendoza, his Democratic colleague and housemate, was being investigated for harassment—even though de León headed the committee overseeing the investigation. He repeated that assertion Monday, saying “there was an internal failure within our system.” Still, he contrasted his situation with Feinstein’s.
“I wish that information would have been brought to my attention, but that’s different than having information and documents within your reach… and not acting on the issue,” he said.
De León pointed out that he moved to overhaul the Senate’s procedure for handling harassment claims as soon as he learned of the allegations against Mendoza.