Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has sent another letter to the Department of Justice asking for an investigation of a woman who, by her own admission, made a false rape allegation against Judge Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.

The story began on September 25 when staffers for Sen, Kamala Harris referred an anonymous letter to the committee which had been mailed to Harris’ office. Though the letter was anonymous (it was signed “Jane Doe”), it allegedly came from a woman in Oceanside, California. It claimed that Kavanaugh and another man had raped her repeatedly in the back seat of a car after offering her a ride home.

Though the letter didn’t have a name or any details about the time frame of the alleged incident, the committee staff read Kavanaugh the letter during a conference call the next day and asked him to comment. He denied that any such thing had ever happened, but after the transcript of the call was released later that same day, multiple news sites reported on the allegation made in the letter.

Then, on October 3, a woman named Judy Munro-Leighton sent an email claiming she was the Jane Doe from Oceanside who sent the letter to Sen. Harris. From Sen. Grassley’s referral letter:

On October 3, 2018, Committee staff received an email from a Ms. Judy Munro Leighton with a subject line claiming: “I am Jane Doe from Oceanside CA — Kavanaugh raped
me.” Ms. Munro-Leighton wrote that she was “sharing with you the story of the night that Brett Kavanaugh and his friend sexually assaulted and raped me in his car” and referred to “the letter that I sent to Sen. Kamala Harris on Sept. 19 with details of this vicious assault.” She continued: “I know that [‘]Jane Doe[’] will get no media attention, but I am deathly afraid of revealing any information about myself or my family.” She then included a typed version of the Jane Doe letter.

Committee investigators began investigating Ms. Munro-Leighton’s allegations. Given her relatively unique name, Committee investigators were able to use open-source research to locate Ms. Munro-Leighton and determine that she: (1) is a left-wing activist; (2) is decades older than Judge Kavanaugh; and (3) lives in neither the Washington DC area nor California, but in Kentucky. In order to investigate her sexual-assault claims, Committee investigators first attempted to reach her by phone on October 3, 2018, but were unsuccessful. On October 29, Committee investigators again attempted contact, leaving a voicemail. In response, Ms. Munro-Leighton left Committee investigators a voicemail on November 1, 2018.

Eventually, on November 1, 2018, Committee investigators connected with Ms. MunroLeighton by phone and spoke with her about the sexual-assault allegations against Judge
Kavanaugh she had made to the Committee. Under questioning by Committee investigators, Ms. Munro-Leighton admitted, contrary to her prior claims, that she had not been sexually assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh and was not the author of the original “Jane Doe” letter. When directly asked by Committee investigators if she was, as she had claimed, the “Jane Doe” from Oceanside California who had sent the letter to Senator Harris, she admitted: “No, no, no. I did that as a way to grab attention. I am not Jane Doe . . . but I did read Jane Doe’s letter. I read the transcript of the call to your Committee. . . . I saw it online. It was news.”

She further confessed to Committee investigators that (1) she “just wanted to get attention”; (2) “it was a tactic”; and (3) “that was just a ploy.” She told Committee investigators that she had called Congress multiple times during the Kavanaugh hearing process – including prior to the time Dr. Ford’s allegations surfaced – to oppose his nomination. allegation she made via her email to the Committee, she said: “I was angry, and I sent it out.” When asked by Committee investigators whether she had ever met Judge Kavanaugh, she said: “Oh Lord, no.”

So this was just a stunt by some left-wing person who was frustrated Kavanaugh was going to be confirmed. She says she did this to get attention and now I suspect she’s going to get all she wanted and more. I don’t know if this is a crime (Grassley seems to think so) but I hope she faces some serious consequences for this. Falsely accusing someone in the public eye of rape is not a minor matter.

By my count, this is the fourth person Grassley has referred to the DOJ for investigation. Last week, he referred Julie Swetnick and attorney Michael Avenatti to DOJ and back in September he made a referral after an individual who had made an allegation of sexual assault on a boat in 1985 recanted the entire claim.