George Stephanopoulos Grills Ronan Farrow On Report Of New Kavanaugh Accuser

Ronan Farrow defended his Sunday night New Yorker report of a second woman alleging sexual misconduct by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Grilled on Good Morning America by ABC News Chief Correspondent George Stephanopopulos, Farrow insisted Deborah Ramirez came forward only after Senate Democrats “began looking” at the alleged incident with Kavanaugh.

“She did not flag this for those Democrats. This came to … the attention of people on the Hill independently and it’s really cornered her into an awkward position. That’s why she took the time to think about this carefully,” said Farrow, who co-bylined the report with the New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer.

Ramirez alleges Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a dorm party when both were students at Yale. She claims he “thrust his penis in her face,” which caused her to have to “touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.”

Ramirez said both she and Kavanaugh had been drinking when the incident allegedly occurred in the early ’80s.

Stephanopoulos argued that Ramirez at first wasn’t sure it was Kavanaugh, and that the New Yorker report says it was only after six days she became confident.

“That’s extremely typical of these stories when dealing with trauma, alcohol, many years in between,” pushed back Farrow, who has been at the front of #MeToo coverage, including reporting on Harvey Weinstein and, most recently, Leslie Moonves.

“I think more cautious witnesses I’ve dealt with, in cases like this, very frequently say, ‘I want to take time to decide, want to search myself…and make sure I can affirmatively stand by these claims’ in the face of what she knew would be a crucible of partisan push back.”

Kavanaugh has responded with a statement in which he said the incident “did not happen,” calling it “a smear, plain and simple.” The White House, meanwhile, calls the report “the latest in a coordinated smear campaign by the Democrats designed to tear down a good man.”