Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) reminded Americans why they have such a high approval of Congress on Thursday, when he shooed away a group of sexual assault survivors with his hand and told them to “grow up.”

A video, first posted to Twitter by Scott Hechinger of Brooklyn Defender Services, captures Sen. Hatch as he heads towards an elevator. When a group of sexual assault survivors asks Sen. Hatch why he won’t talk to them, he waves his hand away dismissively. When the protesters then tell him not to wave his hand at them, Sen. Hatch responds “when you grow up I’ll talk to you.” He then waves goodbye to them behind his bodyguards.

Classy @OrrinHatch telling a group of survivors to “grow up” while he literally shoos them away with his hand. pic.twitter.com/MGEf0OSkWy — Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) October 4, 2018

As a reminder, Orrin Hatch was born in 1934. The anti-rape movement didn’t emerge in the United States until the 1960s. Spousal rape was legal in all states until 1976, when Nebraska criminalized it, and it wasn’t until 1993 when marital rape became a crime in all 50 states. Up until 1975, courts were still allowed to essentially slut-shame rape victims by attacking their credibility via presenting evidence of their sexual activity.


And is happens, on Wednesday, Sen. Hatch was accused of “slut-shaming” Julie Swetnick, Kavanaugh’s third accuser, when his office Twitter account sent out a letter from one of Swetnick’s former partners describing her sexual preferences and added that he initially thought Swetnick was a “high-end call girl.”

Even IF her own sexual preferences as an adult had any bearing on what she said happened to her 30+ years ago (and they don't) MANY survivors have had their trauma impact their sexual preferences as they work through the emotional pain of what happened. — Kendally Brown (@kendallybrown) October 2, 2018

Last Tuesday, two survivors confronted Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) a Senate elevator where they outlined their own traumas and pleaded with the Senator not to vote to confirm Kavanaugh. Sen. Flake looked downcast, and muttered “thank you” a few times, before later saying that the confirmation should be delayed in order to see the results of an FBI investigation into Kavanaugh.

On Thursday more than 1,000 protesters marched to the Supreme Court to demonstrate against Kavanaugh’s nomination, some hoping to help the undecided Republican Senators Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) vote no on the confirmation, which is expected to happen within the next few days. Many of the group later rallied within the Hart Senate building, unfurling a giant banner that read “We believe all survivors.”


The White House had announced earlier in the day that the FBI had completed it supplementary probe into Kavanaugh, interviewing just nine of the dozens of witnesses which offered to talk to the agents. The FBI report, unsurprisingly, revealed “no hint of misconduct” by Kavanaugh.