“While you have been confronted about this accusation, you stated you have been, quote, not a church boy, and that you just, quote, have so many skeletons in my closet. You then texted Miss Cooney an apology and indicated you had no reminiscence of what you described,” Ms. Murray stated, asking pointedly whether or not he had made sexual advances.
“No, I didn’t,” Mr. Kennedy stated. He added that the account had been debunked, with out providing info to substantiate his declare. Ms. Murray requested why he had apologized. “I apologized for one thing else,” he replied.
(Within the textual content, whose contents have been reported by information organizations together with The Occasions in July, Mr. Kennedy wrote, “I’ve no reminiscence of this incident, however I apologize sincerely for something I ever did that made you are feeling uncomfortable or something I did or stated that offended you or damage your emotions.”)
Ms. Murray pressed on, asking Mr. Kennedy if there have been “another situations the place you could have made sexual advances towards a person with out their consent? Simply sure or no.”
“No,” Mr. Kennedy replied.
Within the solutions he submitted on Friday, he didn’t specify the kind of settlement he had reached, or the character of the “misconduct or inappropriate conduct” of which he was accused. In an e-mail assertion to The Occasions on Friday, Ms. Murray recalled the alternate over the babysitter, and stated that Mr. Kennedy was “patently unfit” to steer the Division of Well being and Human Providers.
“His solutions to the finance committee are deeply troubling — the American individuals deserve solutions, and senators will need to have them earlier than a vote is held on his nomination,” the assertion stated.