Is Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh "Bart O'Kavanaugh"? Kavanaugh isn't saying.
During a testy exchange with Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Kavanaugh declined to say whether his life inspired the similarly named character who appears in the 1997 book "Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk," written by his high school friend Mark Judge.
"I'm trying to get a straight answer from you under oath. Are you the Bart O'Kavanaugh that he's referring to? Yes or no," Leahy said.
Kavanaugh responded: "You have to ask him."
The character in Judge's book is said to have "puked in someone's car" and "passed out on his way back from a party."
Kavanaugh, who has been accused by several women of sexual assault while he was intoxicated, has said that he never drank to the point of blacking out. He said that in high school and college he was primarily focused on his academics, sports and community service.
Kavanaugh said Thursday that Judge's book was "fictionalized."
"I think he picked out names of friends of ours to throw them in," Kavanaugh said.
Judge is the only alleged eyewitness identified by one of the women who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Christine Blasey Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University in Northern California, told lawmakers on Thursday that, during a high school gathering in the early 1980s, Judge watched as Kavanaugh drunkenly pinned Ford to a bed and attempted to remove her clothing.
"Mark seemed ambivalent, at times urging Brett on and at times telling him to stop," Ford said Thursday. "A couple of times I made eye contact with Mark and thought he might try to help me, but he did not."
Judge has provided the Judiciary Committee with a sworn statement denying the allegation and saying that "I never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes."
Democrats, however, have pushed for the committee to issue a subpoena forcing Judge to testify.