The right-leaning Wall Street Journal editorial board said Senate Republicans should vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh or risk legitamizing what the paper said were Democratic efforts to wrongfully ruin his reputation.

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"If Republicans reject Mr. Kavanaugh based on what we know now, millions of voters will rightly be furious," the Journal said Thursday evening, after Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexual assaulting her more than 30 years ago.

"But as important, a rejection will bring dishonor to the Senate," it said. "It will validate the ambush and smear politics that Democrats are using. And it will turn Supreme Court nominations over to the justice of the social-media mob and the politics of accusation."

In his testimony, Kavanaugh said he was certain he wasn't present at the party where Ford alleged he trapped her in a room and attempted to remove her clothes, while a friend, Mark Judge, watched and laughed.

Ford, however, said in her own testimony earlier in the day that she could also say with certainty that it was Kavanaugh who violated her.

Republicans are scheduled to hold a committee vote to confirm Kavanaugh on Friday, before Senate votes start Saturday. Republicans hope to confirm her by Tuesday.