【1996 Archives】

On Friday morning996 Archives Senator Jeff Flake finally announced that he'd vote to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

The Republican from Arizona was previously undecided and was seen as one of the key deciding votes. His last minute decision was particularly heartbreaking for a group of sexual assault survivors gathered near his office, who proceeded to confront him in the Senate elevator and reveal their own stories of abuse.

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The highly emotional confrontation lasted approximately five minutes, during which Flake said almost nothing. At times, Flake's aide directed the survivors to the press office. Throughout the confrontation, the two survivors asked Flake to look at him. The Senator largely kept his head to the ground.

"I was sexually assaulted. Nobody believed me," one survivor and protestor, Maria Gallagher, revealed. "You're telling all women in America that they don't matter. They should just keep it to themselves."

Gallagher, 23, had come to DC to protest Kavanaugh's nomination with the group Center for Popular Democracy.

“Don’t look away from me,” Gallagher said. “Look at me and tell me that it doesn’t matter what happened to me, that you will let people like that go into the highest court of the land and tell everyone what they can do to their bodies.”

Along with Gallagher, Ana Maria Archila, also spoke. Archila had come to Senator Flake's office earlier in the week and revealed her own abuse.

“I told it because I recognized in Dr. Ford’s story that she is telling the truth,” Ms. Archila said in the elevator. “What you are doing is allowing someone who actually violated a woman to sit on the Supreme Court. This is not tolerable. You have children in your family. Think about them.”

A vote to confirm Kavanaugh is scheduled for early next week.