Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson on Friday questioned the credibility of the woman who says Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while they were in high school — by connecting it to his own story about a woman who sued him for a paternity test several years ago.
Carson, speaking to a crowd at the Value Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., called sexual predators "abominable," but added there are "two sides to every story" — recalling the time an unidentified Florida woman claimed he was the father of her child and demanded a paternity test and child support.
"I said, 'I have three children and I support them very well,'" he told the crowd. "They said, 'No, there is a woman in Florida. She says you are the father of her son. And she knows where you went to high school, college, medical school, internship, residency, even has a picture of you in scrubs.'"
He added, "I said anybody can get that. Are you kidding me? ... But, see, I had a secret weapon — the truth. I knew that the only woman I had ever slept with in my entire life was my wife."
Carson has told the paternity suit story on several past occasions, including in a 2014 Washington Times op-ed, saying it taught him "firsthand how the blackmail threat operates."
Carson, who was an acclaimed neurosurgeon, also said during his speech that the recent sexual assault allegation made against Kavanaugh by California professor Christine Blasey Ford is part of a "desperate" attempt by the left to smear him and control the ideological makeup of the courts.
Ford alleges that Kavanaugh drunkenly tried to force himself on her while they were teenagers in Maryland in the 1980s. Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegation.
"They don’t like what America is and what it represents, and they want to change us to another system," Carson said. "And in order to do that, there are three things that they must control: the educational system, the media, and the courts. OK? The first two they have. The courts they thought they had, and it was snatched out from under their noses in November of 2016."