In interviews with staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh denied every intensely detailed allegation levied against him by two women who have accused him of sexual misconduct.

He also vehemently denied two new and unsubstantiated allegations that were passed on to the committee by senators.

"This is crazy town. It's a smear campaign," Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh told Senate staffers in interviews about sexual misconduct allegations. "It's trying to take me down, trying to take down my family." Bloomberg photo by Andrew Harrer

Kavanaugh is scheduled to appear Thursday before the committee at a high-stakes hearing. The committee will hear from Christine Blasey Ford, a woman who says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when both were teenagers.

Lawmakers from both parties and lawyers for Kavanaugh and Ford maneuvered for advantage on the eve of the hearing, and Trump weighed in on the fate of his nominee as a new accuser came forward.

According to transcripts of interviews with committee staffers released Wednesday, Kavanaugh flatly denied Ford’s account that he forced himself on her at a party in high school, and Deborah Ramirez’s account that he exposed himself at a party when they were both freshmen Yale University.

“This is crazy town. It’s a smear campaign,” Kavanaugh said. “It’s trying to take me down, trying to take down my family.”

Committee staffers interviewed Kavanaugh on Sept. 17 and again on Sept. 25, two days after The New Yorker published a story about Ramirez.

Kavanaugh also denied that he participated in or was witness to gang rape, which lawyer Michael Avenatti had hinted at in communications with committee staff. On Wednesday, Avenatti sent a sworn declaration from his client, Julie Swetnick, to the committee, alleging that Kavanaugh targeted women with alcohol during high school and was present when women were raped by multiple boys.

“That is false. I’ve never participated in gang rape,” Kavanaugh said. “I think it’s absurd, outrageous, a joke, a farce, the twilight zone.”

Committee staff asked Kavanaugh question after excruciating question touching on every detail in both Ford’s and Ramirez’s accounts, and Kavanaugh forcefully denied every detail. At times, he sounded affronted and angry about the accusations, describing them as an “orchestrated hit to take me out.”

“It’s not appropriate for people to be dredging up uncorroborated stories and trying to refresh other people’s recollections and then stoke the media and create a feeding frenzy and destroy my family and destroy my reputation and take me down,” he said. “This is not right. It’s an outrage.”

Kavanaugh acknowledged knowing Ford but said they didn’t travel in the same circles. He said he couldn’t rule out attending a party with her but does not recall. He also acknowledged knowing Mark Judge,who Ford alleged was present in the room at the time of the attack. Kavanaugh said they were friends in high school and kept in touch “occasionally” after that. “But I have not been in touch with him in several years, putting aside potential group emails that members of my high school class might send out that would include both of us.”

He said he does not remember the party described by Ford. Asked whether he had any physical encounters with Ford, Kavanaugh said: “I did not.”

The answer was the same when he was asked whether he pushed Ford into a bedroom, locked the door, pinned her to a bed or groped her, put his hand over her mouth, tried to remove her clothing.

He said he attended parties often on Saturday nights, and drank beer at those parties.

When asked whether he drank to the point he would black out, he said “No.”

“I did not do this,” he said of the larger accusation. “I did not do this to Ms. Ford or anyone. I want to be categorical and unequivocal that I did not commit sexual assault. That is not me. That was not me.”

Kavanaugh acknowledged that he knew Ramirez in college but flatly denied the allegation of sexual misconduct. “That did not happen,” he said. He said he had had no sexual or romantic encounters with Ramirez and did not recall being at the gathering she described, where a small group of students sat in a circle playing a drinking game.

Kavanaugh also denied an assertion by another former Yale classmate, James Roche, that he was frequently incoherently drunk in college. He said he spent his time at Yale focusing on studying hard enough to get into Yale Law upon graduation – “I worked my ass off” – and on basketball.

Clearly upset about the mounting allegations, Kavanaugh pointed to news reports that Ramirez had called friends, asking them if they remembered who had flashed his genitals at her in college.

Kavanaugh also denied two other allegations of sexual misconduct that had not previously been made public.

He voiced concern about what the “smear campaign” against him would mean for the future of the Supreme Court, or for the willingness of others to serve on the court. “Who would want to go through this?” he said. “It’s just – it’s a disgrace.”

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