“Once you had been confronted about this accusation, you mentioned you had 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 mentioned, asking pointedly whether or not he had made sexual advances.
“No, I didn’t,” Mr. Kennedy mentioned. He added that the account had been debunked, with out providing data 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 had been reported by information organizations together with The Instances in July, Mr. Kennedy wrote, “I’ve no reminiscence of this incident, however I apologize sincerely for something I ever did that made you’re feeling uncomfortable or something I did or mentioned that offended you or damage your emotions.”)
Ms. Murray pressed on, asking Mr. Kennedy if there have been “every other situations the place you’ve got 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 electronic mail assertion to The Instances on Friday, Ms. Murray recalled the trade over the babysitter, and mentioned that Mr. Kennedy was “patently unfit” to steer the Division of Well being and Human Companies.
“His solutions to the finance committee are deeply troubling — the American folks deserve solutions, and senators should have them earlier than a vote is held on his nomination,” the assertion mentioned.
