Kavanaugh news: Julie Swetnick’s NBC interview raises new questions

As the FBI continues to investigate claims of sexual misconduct made against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, one of his accusers claimed in a television interview Monday night that Kavanaugh was a "sloppy drunk" who attended parties where women, including herself, were gang raped.

Julie Swetnick, who suggested Kavanaugh drugged women and said he was present at a party in the 1980s where she was gang raped, told NBC News correspondent Kate Snow that Kavanaugh was a "very mean drunk" who rubbed up against women at parties to "grope them." But Swetnick didn't accuse Kavanaugh of groping her at any of the parties she attended.

As NBC News noted, some of Swetnick's comments to the network differed from the initial disclosure first shared by her attorney, Michael Avenatti. Snow also made it clear NBC News could not independently verify Swetnick's claims. "We're not discounting what she said in any way," Snow told MSNBC host Ari Melber after the interview aired. "We're just doing our reporting. … There are a lot of people working on this."

In the account shared by Avenatti last week, Swetnick said she "became aware" of Kavanaugh spiking the punch at parties in order to target specific women, but she told NBC she only saw him near the punch containers "giving red Solo cups to quite a few girls."

"I don't know what he did," Swetnick admitted.

During an appearance on CNN Monday night, Avenatti said Swetnick was willing to take a polygraph to prove she is telling the truth about Kavanaugh.

"The Swetnick thing is a joke. It's a farce," Kavanaugh said during his testimony. "I've never met her. Don't know who she this…. totally ridiculous."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

>> READ MORE: 11 cartoons that show America's complicated feelings about  Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford | Opinion

Here are other recent developments surrounding Kavanaugh's nomination:

During his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kavanaugh blamed opposition to his Supreme Court nomination in part on "revenge on behalf of the Clintons" due to his role working for independent counsel Ken Starr during the investigation of former President Bill Clinton.

On Tuesday, former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton responded to Kavanaugh's comments.

"It deserves a lot of laugher," Clinton said to laughs during an interview at The Atlantic's Media Ideas Festival. "I thought it was just part of the whole of his very defensive and unconvincing presentation."

Clinton said she found the Christine Blasey Ford's testimony alleging she was sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh at a high school party 36 years ago "very credible," and said Kavanaugh's angry and sometimes partisan responses left her concerned about his judicial temperament.

"We have not seen anything quite like that for a very long time… the performance, the behavior was quite out of bounds," Clinton said.

Ahead of his trip to Philadelphia, President Trump told reporters on the south lawn of the White House that he was still confident Kavanaugh will be approved by the Senate, and criticized the "brutal treatment" his Supreme Court nominee was receiving.

"It's a very scary situation where you're guilty until your proven innocent," Trump told reporters. "It's a very scary time for young men in America."

>> READ MORE: Live coverage of Trump's visit to Philadelphia

"What's happening here has much more to do than even the appointment of a Supreme Court justice," Trump added. "You can be somebody that was perfect your entire life, and somebody could accuse you of something… and you're automatically guilty.

Trump also said that while he continues to back Kavanaugh and his nomination, he added, "We'll have to see what the FBI says."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate would vote on Kavanaugh's nomination this week.

"After the FBI shares what they found, senators will have the opportunity to vote," McConnell said.

As of Tuesday morning, Republicans had not announced a specific timeline on when a vote could occur. If the FBI finishes its investigation by Friday and McConnell files cloture soon thereafter, the Senate could vote on Kavanaugh's nomination as early as Sunday.

Three Republicans senators — Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Jeff Flake of Arizona — remain potential swing votes.

Kavanaugh was accused to starting a bar fight while he was an undergraduate student a Yale, according to a 1985 police report first obtained by the New York Times.

According to the September 1985 police report, Kavanaugh was accused of throwing ice at Dom Cozzolino, a man at a bar in New Haven, Conn., "for some unknown reason." Kavanaugh did not want to tell police "if he threw the ice or not," according to the redacted report.

Chris Dudley, a Yale classmate and friend of Kavanaugh and a former NBA player, was then accused to throwing a glass that hit Cozzolino in the ear. Cozzolino "was bleeding from the right ear" and treated at a hospital, according to the report.

The police report does not describe any arrests, and New Haven police chief Anthony Campbell told CNN there were no other records he was aware of involving Kavanaugh.

The bar fight was first brought up in a statement issued over the weekend by Chad Ludington, a classmate of Kavanaugh and a member of the Yale basketball team. Ludington, a professor at North Carolina State University, claimed Kavanaugh responded to a semi-hostile remark "not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man's face."

>> READ MORE: Have young men's attitudes toward sexual violence changed since Kavanaugh's youth?

On Twitter, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called the story "ridiculous," pointing out that one of the Times reporters on the story, Emily Bazelon, had previously criticized Kavanaugh's nomination.

The New York Times admitted it was a mistake to call on Bazelon, who sometimes writes opinion pieces, to help on a straight news story.

"Her role in this story was to help colleagues in the newsroom gather public documents in New Haven, where Emily is based," The Times said in a statement. "In retrospect, editors should have used a newsroom reporter for that assignment. To be clear, the story is straightforward, fact-based and we fully stand behind it."

Text messages obtained and reviewed by NBC News reportedly show Kavanaugh and his legal team working hard to suppress Deborah Ramirez's allegations before she went public in the New Yorker.

The text messages were between Kerry Berchem, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh, and another friend, Karen Yarasavage. Berchem told NBC News she began communicating with Kavanaugh and his team as far back as July, and has been unsuccessful getting the FBI to look at the text messages.

From NBC News:

During his testimony, Kavanaugh said he only found out about Ramirez's allegations after the New Yorker story was published on Sept. 23. In an interview with Republican Judiciary staff on Sept. 25, Kavanaugh said it was Ramirez who was contacting former classmates "trying to see if they remembered it."

>> READ MORE: Christine Blasey Ford, Brett Kavanaugh, and the day the laughter stopped for America's privileged | Will Bunch

 >> READ MORE: Kavanaugh creates #MeToo moment for accused men | Christine Flowers