New Witness Accuses Brett Kavanaugh of Setting Up “Gang Rapes”

Julie Swetnick says she attended house parties in the early 80s with Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge. Swetnick claims that the pair drank to excess, targeted girls to take advantage of, and then made them the victims of "gangs" or "trains" of boys who raped them.Photo provided by Mark Avenatti

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Well, um, celebrity lawyer Michael Avenatti has entered the Brett Kavanaugh sweepstakes this morning with a written affadavit from Julie Swetnick, who says she attended many house parties in the early 80s with Kavanaugh and Mark Judge. She describes them as “joined at the hip.” And her affadavit is a barnburner: “I fully understand the seriousness of the statement contained within this declaration,” she says:

And then this:

You can read the full thing here. This certainly marks a major turn in the Kavanaugh affair if Swetnick turns out to be credible and if anyone else steps up to corroborate what she says. I guess today isn’t going to be a boring day.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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