WASHINGTON (REUTERS, AFP) - US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh said in Wall Street Journal op-ed on Thursday (Oct 4) that he "might have been too emotional at times" in his Senate testimony last week in which he denied accusations of sexual misconduct.
Kavanaugh wrote in the opinion piece that his testimony "reflected my overwhelming frustration at being wrongly accused."
Kavanaugh's chances of confirmation by the Senate gained momentum on Thursday after two wavering lawmakers responded positively to an FBI report on accusations of sexual misconduct against the judge.
"I am an independent, impartial judge," said the headline to an opinion piece he wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
Kavanaugh penned the defence of his performance during last week's Judiciary Committee hearing at which he denied the allegations, made at the same hearing, of a California university professor.
Christine Blasey Ford said he drunkenly groped her and attempted to take her clothes off in what she believed was a rape attempt when they were teenagers decades ago.
More than 650 law professors signed a letter to the Senate, published in The New York Times on Wednesday, saying that at the hearing Kavanaugh "did not display the impartiality and judicial temperament" required for the Supreme Court, and urged that he not be confirmed. Protesters on Capitol Hill on Thursday carried signs calling the judge a liar and "unfit" to serve.
"My hearing testimony was forceful and passionate. That is because I forcefully and passionately denied the allegation against me," Kavanaugh wrote in the Wall Street Journal.
"I do not decide cases based on personal or policy preferences. I am not a pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant judge. I am not a pro-prosecution or pro-defense judge. I am a pro-law judge."
He added that the country's top court "must never be viewed as a partisan institution."
In his testimony last week, Kavanaugh complained about "a calculated and orchestrated political hit fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election."
He called the campaign against his nomination "a circus" and spoke of a frenzy on the left to come up with something, anything, to block my confirmation."
