WARNING: Story contains graphic image

A Halifax artist’s political cartoon is making waves on the internet, as the disturbing image illustrates an assault on Lady Justice in the wake of the Senate hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Bruce MacKinnon, a cartoonist for the Chronicle Herald, depicts a blindfolded Lady Justice being held down by Republican hands as her scales of justice lie beside her. One of the hands is covering her mouth, which seems to be a reference to the way in which Christine Blasey Ford described an alleged sexual assault by the Supreme Court nominee when they were teenagers.

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In Ford’s testimony on Thursday, she told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Kavanaugh covered her mouth while she was pinned down on a bed during the alleged assault at a high school party.

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Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied the claims.

The powerful political cartoon shows Lady Justice blindfolded and pinned down as her scales lie beside her, one hand covering her mouth — an explicit reference to how California professor Christine Blasey Ford described an alleged sexual assault by Kavanaugh when they were both in high school in 1982. CANADIAN PRESS/HO-The Halifax Chronicle Herald, Bruce MacKinnon

On Friday, a full Senate vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination was delayed after Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona called for further investigation into Ford’s claims. The FBI now has one week to investigate the matter.

A few hours earlier, Flake had said he would support Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge.

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MacKinnon said he was inspired to draw the cartoon because he believes the hearing was a “watershed moment” in how allegations of sexual abuse are treated in North America.

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The cartoonist told the Washington Post that it seemed Republican members of the committee wanted “to smother justice before it had a chance to be heard.”

After the cartoon was posted on Twitter, many users commented that the image was very difficult to look at. One Twitter user called it “disturbing and necessary.”

—With files from the Canadian Press