Moments after Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)—the key swing vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee—announced he would vote to advance Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court on Friday, a sexual assault survivor tearfully confronted him, pleading for the Arizona senator to change course.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Maria Gallagher told Flake as he entered an elevator. “You’re telling me that my assault doesn’t matter. That what happened to me doesn’t matter. And that you’re going to let the people who do these things into power. That’s what you’re telling me when you vote for him.”
She was one of several protesters to approach Flake with gripping exhortations to vote against Kavanaugh.
“You have children in your family. Think about them,” another woman, Maria Archila, told Flake. “I have two children. I cannot imagine that for the next 50 years they will have someone in the Supreme Court who has been accused of violating a young girl. What are you doing, sir?”
This post has been updated to include the women’s names.
