Kavanaugh: I Thought Parkland Dad Fred Guttenberg Was ‘Protester’

In a written answer to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh said he thought Fred Guttenberg, father of a Parkland shooting victim, was a protester when asked why he didn’t shake Guttenberg’s hand. “As I was leaving the hearing room for a recess last Tuesday, a man behind me yelled my name, approached me from behind, and touched my arm. It had been a chaotic morning with a large number of protestors in the hearing room,” Kavanaugh wrote. “When I turned and did not recognize the man, I assumed he was a protestor. In a split second, my security detail intervened and ushered me out of the hearing room.” Kavanaugh continued, saying Guttenberg had suffered an “incalculable loss.” “If I had known who he was, I would have shaken his hand, talked to him, and expressed my sympathy. And I would have listened to him,” he wrote. The moment, captured by courtroom press and C-SPAN cameras, caused a firestorm on social media. After the incident, Guttenberg tweeted that Kavanaugh “pulled his hand back, turned his back to me and walked away. I guess he did not want to deal with the reality of gun violence.”