US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was a "frequent, heavy drinker" at college who staggered, slurred his words and became belligerent and aggressive, a former classmate has said.

Charles Ludington said he decided to speak out because he was "deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterisation by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale".

During an angry and emotional statement to a nomination hearing in Washington last week, Mr Kavanaugh said he "drank beer with my friends".

He added: "Sometimes I had too many beers, sometimes others did.

"But I did not drink beer to the point of blacking out and I never sexually assaulted anyone."


Mr Ludington, who teaches at North Carolina State University, said in a statement: "On many occasions I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption, not all of which was beer.

"When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive."

Mr Ludington added that while youthful drinking should not condemn someone for life, he had nevertheless been concerned about Mr Kavanaugh's statements under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The FBI is spending a week looking into allegations of sexual misconduct against Mr Kavanaugh after President Trump ordered an investigation.

'I believed he was going to rape me'

Mr Kavanaugh appeared before the committee on the same day as Christine Blasey Ford, who said she feared she was going to be raped by him at a high school party.

She said Mr Kavanaugh was "very inebriated", and feared he was "accidentally going to kill me".

Mr Kavanaugh denies the allegation.

Another woman who has made an allegation against Mr Kavanaugh, Deborah Ramirez, spoke to the FBI on Sunday.

She alleges that Mr Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party in the early 1980s when they were both students at Yale.

Mr Kavanaugh also denies that allegation.

Kavanaugh: 'This is a circus'

Democrats and Republicans have argued about whether a week is enough time to carry out a thorough investigation.

Some Democratic members of Congress have accused the White House of stopping investigators from interviewing certain witnesses.

But the White House has denied "micro-managing" the review.

President Trump has tweeted that no matter how much freedom the FBI was given, it would never be enough for Democrats trying to deny Mr Kavanaugh a place on the Supreme Court.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: "We're not micro-managing this process. It's a Senate process. It has been from the beginning, and we're letting the senate continue to dictate what the terms look like."