Rape survivor Ana Maria Archila reflects on confronting Senator Jeff Flake in lift about Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination
Two tearful women corner senator as he got on an lift, pleading for him to reconsider his support for Brett Kavanaugh who’s been accused of sexual assault when he was a teenager
Ana Maria Archila had never told her father that she was sexually abused as a child.
But after she confronted a US senator about President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee and the video started going viral, she thought it was time to share her story.
“I always carried the fear that my parents would feel that they had failed in taking care of me if I told them,” Archila said in a phone interview with The Washington Post.
“Today I texted my father and I said, ‘You’re going to hear something that we haven’t talked about, and I want you to know that I’m OK,’” she said.
The encounter on Friday morning between Archila, a second woman and Republican Senator Jeff Flake, has already become an iconic moment in the debate over Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
With a CNN camera behind them broadcasting live, Archila and Maria Gallagher blocked the doors of an lift for about five minutes in an effort to confront Flake about his just-announced support for Kavanaugh, who is facing several allegations of sexual misconduct.