She Confronted Flake. Hours Later, He Flipped on Kavanaugh
Sen. Jeff Flake Asked for Kavanaugh Vote Delay After Assault Survivor Confronted Him in Elevator
“I was sexually assaulted and nobody believed me,” Maria Gallagher, 23, told the senator in an elevator hours before his surprise call for a vote delay.
Sam Stein
09.28.18 2:33 PM ET
It was all so spontaneous.
Maria Gallagher, 23, had come to the Hart Senate office building on Friday morning to protest the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. And as part of her responsibilities, she’d been tasked with camping out outside of Sen. Jeff Flake’s office to somehow, someway, persuade him to vote no.
She never imagined she’d actually see the senator walk down the hall to make his way to the Judiciary Committee where he would cast a vote. Nor did she expect that news would emerge, at that moment, that he would vote yes on the nomination after having wavered for days about what to do. And yet, there Flake was, tall and slender, dressed in a sharp suit and white shirt, making his way to the elevator.
“It was all kind of a blur,” Gallagher recalled in an interview with The Daily Beast. “We all ran after him. We held open the elevator and I just started telling him why it was important and what had happened to me and why he should not let Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.”
What followed was an excruciating exchange that lasted only five minutes in time but could, just maybe, change the course of history. After another woman, Ana Maria Archila, admonished Flake for supporting Kavanaugh, Gallagher jumped in.
“I was sexually assaulted and nobody believed me,” she said. “I didn’t tell anyone, and you’re telling all women that they don’t matter.”
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/sen-jeff-flake-asked-for-kavanaugh-vote-delay-after-assault-survivor-confronted-him-in-elevator?ref=home
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