Sen. Orrin Hatch on Wednesday beat back Hillary Clinton's charge that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh would undermine access to birth control because of his response on an Obamacare contraception mandate case during his confirmation hearing last week.
"This didn't happen" the Utah Republican's office said on Twitter. Hatch is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held Kavanaugh's hearing last week.
"Numerous fact-checks have ruled this false — and The Washington Post gave it four pinocchios."
In a six-post Twitter rant earlier Wednesday, Clinton slammed Kavanaugh for saying "abortion-inducing drugs" at the hearing, arguing it "set off a lot of alarm bells for me, and it should for you, too."
She also said Kavanaugh "used that term because it's a dog whistle to the extreme right" and urged voters to call senators to push for women's reproductive rights.
During the hearing, Kavanaugh used the term to explain his dissent in a 2014 appeals court decision denying Catholic groups a hearing opposing the contraception mandate on religious grounds.
Kavanaugh felt the groups deserved a full hearing, especially since they would have to fill out a federal form disclosing their objections.
"It was a technical matter of filling out a form, in that case with — that — they said filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were — as a religious matter, objected to," Kavanaugh said at the hearing.
But Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California — and later other party members — seized on the comment to attack Kavanaugh.
Harris posted a tweet of his comments omitting "they said" — then a second one with the full response — though she doubled down on her original attack.
However, the Post concluded that Kavanaugh was "quoting the views of the plaintiffs rather than offering a personal view" in using the term.
The paper also ripped Harris for excluding "they said" from the first tweet, calling the move "certainly troubling."
Despite the second tweet, "there was no acknowledgment from Harris that the original tweet was misleading," the Post concluded.
"Her fellow Democrats should drop this talking point."
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