A third woman has come forward to claim she witnessed sexually abusive behavior by US President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in the early 1980s.
Julie Swetnick said in a statement released by her lawyer that she was gang raped at a party she attended while a high school student in suburban Maryland.
She said she saw Mr Kavanaugh behave as a "mean drunk" at such parties and witnessed him "engage in highly inappropriate conduct" that included the "fondling and grabbing of girls without their consent.
"I observed Brett Kavanaugh drink excessively at many of these parties and engage in abusive and physically aggressive behavior towards girls, including pressing girls against him without their consent, 'grinding' against girls, and attempting to remove or shift girls' clothing to expose private body parts," Ms Swetnick said.
"I likewise observed him be verbally abusive towards girls by making crude sexual comments to them that were designed to demean, humiliate and embarrass them," she said.
Ms Swetnick said Mr Kavanaugh's claim of "innocence" and lack of sexual activity in high school was "absolutely false and a lie."
Ms Swetnick, who has worked extensively for the US federal government, also said she was drugged and gang-raped at a party in approximately 1982 at which Mr Kavanaugh was present.
She did not claim that he took part in or was aware of her rape but she claimed that he and other boys in his circle engaged in similar behaviour.
She said she had witnessed efforts by Mr Kavanaugh to "target particular girls so they could be taken advantage of".
The bombshell new claims come after two other women came forward to accuse the judge of assaulting them in the 1980s, in a scandal that has tripped up what was expected to be an easy confirmation process for the conservative judge.
Dr Christine Blasey Ford, a university professor in California, was the first woman to accuse Mr Kavanaugh of sexual assault.
She accused him of sexually assaulting her in 1982 when they were both high school students in Maryland.
She will present senators with sworn declarations from four people to corroborate her allegations, according to copies of the statements released by her lawyers.
The panel is scheduled to hold a hearing tomorrow on the accusations, ahead of a vote Friday on Mr Kavanaugh's nomination.
Another woman, Deborah Ramirez, has accused him of sexual misconduct when she and Mr Kavanaugh were students at Yale University.
Speaking at a press conference, US President Donald Trump said he was open to pulling Mr Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination if he finds the evidence against him of sexual assault convincing.
"I can always be convinced," Mr Trump said at a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
"If I thought he was guilty of something like this, yes, sure. I want to watch. I want to see," the president said.
At the same time, Mr Trump described Mr Kavanaugh as a "great gentleman" and said he believed the accusations against the conservative were "false."
Mr Trump said he was skeptical because he personally has been the target of "false statements" in the past made by various women.
"It does impact my opinions because I've had a lot of false charges made against me," he said. "People want fame, they want money, they want whatever."
Mr Kavanaugh has denied the allegations and took his defence public this week in an interview on Fox News.
He described the latest claims as "ridiculous" and "from the Twilight Zone".
