Watch a Sexual Assault Survivor Corner Jeff Flake: 'Look at Me and Tell Me that It Doesn't Matter What Happened to Me'

Matthew Chapman
and
AlterNet
28 September 2018

On Friday morning, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) announced he would support Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh — despite the sexual assault allegations against him, despite Kavanaugh's lies, partisan attacks and loss of temperament, and despite of Flake's own admission the day before that he could not be sure what happened.

It was a depressingly familiar storyline for Flake, who has repeatedly scolded President Donald Trump and his GOP colleagues for the breakdown of our institutions while voting with them to break them every single time.

This time, as he left the committee vote to proceed on the Kavanaugh nomination, he was confronted by two sexual assault survivors, Maria Gallagher and Ana Maria Archila. And as they shouted at him, and begged him to listen to them, he uncomfortably averted his gaze in the elevator.

"I was sexually assaulted and nobody believed me!" yelled Gallagher. "I didn't tell anyone, and now you're telling all women that they don't matter, that they should just stay quiet because, if they tell you what happened to them, you’re going to ignore them!"

"That's what you're telling all of these women! That's what you're telling me right now!" she continued. "Look at me when I'm talking to you! 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 people who do these things into power! That's what you're telling me when you vote for him!"

"Don't look away from me!" Gallagher shouted. "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!"