Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-ME) office issued a statement to Breitbart News rebuking threats and other attempts to bully her into opposing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Last month, progressive activist Ady Barkan pledged to make a $1.3 million donation to Sen. Collins’ 2020 opponent if the Republican senator decides to vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. The Maine senator has faced increasing threats as she continues her vetting process to decide if she will support Kavanaugh.
Annie Clark, Collins’ spokeswoman, told Breitbart News that Sen. Collins will make her decision independent of threats or attempts to bribe her with donations.
Clark said in a statement:
Bribery will not work on Senator Collins. Extortion will not work on Senator Collins. And anybody who thinks these tactics would work on Senator Collins, obviously doesn’t know her. This crowdfunded money to pressure her is based on a quid pro quo — you vote the way we want and we will keep more than a million dollars away from your opponent — vote against us and we give her the money. It is basically a bribe.
“Senator Collins will make up her mind based on the merits of the nomination. Threats or other attempts to bully her will not play a factor in her decision-making whatsoever,” Clark added.
Sen. Collins is one of the remaining GOP senators to back Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) hopes to have the Senate confirm Kavanaugh on October 1.
Sen. Collins and her staffers continue to face taunts and rape threats.
In one threat, a letter states, “If you vote for Kavanaugh, EVERY waitress who serves you is going to spit in your food, and that’s if you’re lucky, you fucking CUNT!”
One threat involved a “caller [who] told a 25-year-old female staff member at one of Ms. Collins’ Maine offices that he hoped she would be raped and impregnated.”
Another caller threatened, “Have you seen the emails … where he talked about Roe v. Wade not being settled law. He [bleeped] lied to you. How [bleeped] naive do you have to be?”
Leftist activists mailed Sen. Collins 3,000 coat hangers to her office in a reference to back-alley abortions.
“A group of men and women, some garbed in red robes and white bonnets — an allusion to The Handmaid’s Tale, the Margaret Atwood book and television series — demonstrated outside the senator’s home in Bangor over the weekend,” the New York Times reported.