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U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) made a crude joke about sexual assault Thursday at the beginning of an election debate, according to a report from The Post and Courier. Norman began his remarks by noting that he almost had to miss the debate to fly to Washington, D.C, for the latest Supreme Court drama. “Did y’all hear this latest late-breaking news from the Kavanaugh hearings?” Norman asked the crowd. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out that she was groped by Abraham Lincoln.” His off-color comments come after Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was accused by Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor, of sexually assaulting her in 1982. Norman’s opponent in the November primaries, Sumter Democrat Archie Parnell, was quick to criticize Norman’s words: “My opponent apparently thinks sexual assault is a joke,” Parnell said in a statement after the debate. “It is not.”